A New Normal
by Cass Purser
Summary: Gail Peck was ready to lie down and die, but the universe wasn't finished messing with her yet.
1. Blindsided

The music from Gail's alarm played softly, infiltrating her dreams until she woke up with a groan. It had been another night of tossing and turning, finally falling asleep around 2 am only to wake up multiple times. Gail hadn't slept well in weeks, haunted by old traumas from Perik that featured new faces like Sophie, Holly, Steve, and her parents.

Gail threw her housecoat on, shuffling to the kitchen on autopilot to fetch coffee. She responded to Chris and Dov's "good morning" with a muttered response, adding cream and sugar to the coffee until it was palatable.

"Man, your eyes are slitty." Dov commented, pouring his cereal into a bowl. His tone was joking, but with an underlying level of concern. Gail shrugged in response and walked back to her room with the mug. She heard the muffled sound of Chris telling Dov to back off through her door.

Chris had been weirdly supportive over the past month, standing by in his quiet way to make her life easier when he could. This included making her coffee extra strong in the morning, picking her up from bars when she drank herself stupid, and staying up with her several times when the dreams got too bad. On those nights Gail would halfheartedly snap at him to go to bed. He would ignore her and make tea, before settling down on the couch beside her and turning on some mind numbing infomercial channel.

Dov was too engrossed in Chloe to pay much attention, but Gail suspected he was the one to put a blanket on her a few times when she passed out on the couch, empty tequila bottle on the table in front of her.

Gail knew she was drinking too much. She also knew that sleeping with Frankie was doing more harm than good. But having lost everything she cared about caring for, it was just another way to try and fill the void she felt.

The only thing that wasn't suffering was her career. Gail threw herself into work, becoming surprisingly successful at training her rookie. It helped that Fox wasn't as clueless as the rest of the rookies were, and he accepted her biting criticisms with a willingness to improve and well-timed coffees. It was still incredibly hard to get out of bed in the mornings, but having a rookie relying on her that had visible improvement each day made it easier. Gail suspected some strategic placement there on Oliver's part.

Gail suffered through Chloe's prattle on the ride in with Chris and Dov, slurping her coffee loudly to try and drown out Chloe's high-pitched chirps. At least the girl had the decency to buy her a donut.

"All right, everyone shut up and sit down!" Oliver shouted good-naturedly at the beginning of parade. "It's a beautiful day out there. Connors!" Oliver suddenly pointed at one of the rookies, some clueless little thing that had tried to take over Chloe's locker on the first day. The girl gulped at the attention.

"Why, my dear, is today such a good day?" Oliver asked in his familiar dad-voice way.

"I…don't know." The girl stammered.

Oliver sighed dramatically, then brightened up. "Because today is traffic duty day!" A collective groan echoed through the room. "Numbers are down, folks! The public eye is on us, along with the bigwigs from up above that determine our budget. Let's show them that 15 has more than survived the past month, that we have come out to be better than before."

Gail tuned out the hokey inspiration talk. She couldn't do optimism, not on only 4 hours of sleep.

"As a side note, you may notice that Forensics has a few different faces starting today. I don't know why the personnel have been shuffled around, and I definitely don't want any of you speculating about how much this may or may not have to do with the recent scandals." Oliver stated with a tone of innocence.

Traci poked her head into the room. "I'm going to need some uniforms, I just got a case." She said to Oliver.

Gail couldn't recall the last time she witnessed Oliver grin so mischievously. "Peck! Take your Rookie and go." He said. Gail huffed and got up, glad to be off traffic duty. She wondered about the look on Oliver's face though.

"Serve! Protect! And make today the best day of your life!"

Gail snorted as the crowd in the room dispersed, gesturing to her rookie to follow her out to the parking lot. She met Traci in the compound.

"Someone should check Ollie's coffee, he's awfully chirpy this morning." Gail said in way of greeting.

"19 year old male, probable gang affiliations." Traci ignored her. "Forensics is on scene now." She gave the address and Gail nodded, tugging on Fox's sleeve to get him to follow her to their car.

Gail dangled the keys between her thumb and forefinger. "Fastest way to get there?" she asked. Curtis stammered out a response that she deemed acceptable so she tossed the keys over.

"Really?" Fox said in surprise. He had never driven before.

"Get in the car before I change my mind." Gail sniped, waiting for him to unlock the passenger door before getting in. She wasn't about to tell him that she felt too exhausted to want to drive, and he knew better than to remark on the dark circles under her eyes.

They drove along in silence. Gail ignored the repeated side glances Fox sent her way, and rolled her eyes when he cleared his throat to begin small talking.

"So glad we got out of traffic duty." He said, drumming his fingertips across the top of the steering wheel as they waited for the light.

"Traffic duty is good for Rookies." Gail replied flatly. "It teaches you how to stage, reminds you about the mundane points of the law we enforce, and it gets you talking to people who are either angry or lying to your face the whole time."

"It would have sucked for you."

"That's why I usually volunteer for helping the D's or desk duty. But it's not like I can do that with you tagging along."

Fox scratched his face in surprise. "But we are with the D's today."

Gail frowned as she remembered the strange look on Ollie's face that morning. "Yeah. I'm not exactly sure why. Oliver is up to something."

Fox did that thing where he bobbed his head slightly while chewing on the inside of his lip. It meant that the little hamster wheel in his head was beginning to turn a little too fast for her liking.

"What." She snapped.

"Sergeant Shaw seems to care for you a lot." He said carefully. Gail shot him a look and he stiffened. "Sorry. Shutting up now."

"Thank god." She said under her breath as they turned into the parking lot of the scene.

Traci met them in the front of the building and they waited for the small elevator in relative silence. It wasn't until they were in the elevator that Traci turned and commented "You look terrible."

"Thanks, you too."

"I mean you have circles under your eyes like you've been up for a week." Traci said, shaking her head in exasperation.

"It's the shitty fluorescents. And my pale skin."

Traci gave her a disparaging look and Gail sighed. "Plus my rookie's here and you haven't looked at me without seeing Steve Peck in weeks, so I'm not exactly interested in talking about it."

Traci opened her mouth to reply, but the ancient elevator finally dinged and the doors opened. Gail strode down the hallway to the door with the officer in front, her rookie following. She turned to Curtis before entering. "Stay out front for now, and don't let anyone in. We want to get a look at the scene first then I'll take you in, that way I don't have to worry about you accidently contaminating anything."

The other officer thanked Gail as Fox took his spot, promising to bring back coffee from across the street.

Gail and Traci walked carefully in the room, avoiding the debris on the floor. The room was completely trashed, with drawers and cupboards emptied everywhere. Someone had apparently been looking for something, and had a hard time finding it.

They approached the bedroom where all the forensics techs were, passing a red lunchbox that was set on the ground beside the doorway.

' _Forensics bag_.' Gail corrected mentally.

"What do we have?" Traci asked, standing beside Gail in the doorway.

"The pathologist just had to run out to the truck to grab something, she'll be back in a minute." Rodney said apologetically, poking his head out of the crowd. His eyes widened slightly as he saw Gail, before clearing his throat and continuing his work.

Gail opened her mouth to retort something about them being _big kids who can think for themselves_ , when her attention was caught by some commotion from the hall.

"No, you don't understand. I just had to run out to get some more medium gloves, there were only large ones in the bag." A female voice rang out, clearly exasperated.

"And who are you, ma'am?"

"The forensic pathologist."

The tone, the cadence. The voice rang out in Gail's mind, the same one that had been keeping her up the past few nights.

"Let her in, Fox." Gail called, hoping her voice didn't sound nearly as strangled as it sounded to her. This wasn't happening. This was just a result of sleep deprivation and stress. She should really consider taking a day off.

Holly rounded the corner, but stopped short when she saw Gail.

"Gail. Hey." Holly stammered, clearly caught off guard.

"Hi." This wasn't happening.

"Hey."

"You said that already." Gail said softly. Her arms unconsciously drifted to hug her torso.

Holly nervously ran a hand through her hair. "Yeah, sounded familiar." An awkward silence stretched between them for a few seconds, neither of them sure what to say.

Traci looked between them slowly. "Um… so Dr. Stewart. Why don't you walk us through your findings so far."

Holly appeared grateful at the rescue, walking with Traci towards the body while going over what they had found. Gail lingered behind, her mind still reeling from what just happened.

"Wow." Fox said, appearing beside her to hand her a coffee. "The new pathologist is hot."

Gail accepted the drink without taking her eyes off Holly. "Fox?"

"Yes?" Curtis replied warily, the tone in Gail's voice scaring him.

"If you ever say that again, I will castrate you myself."

"Yes, Officer Peck."

* * *

 _To be continued..._


	2. My New Normal

In the end, the case was simple. A small time dealer attempted to rip off a supplier who was with one of the local gangs. They sent someone to collect, a fight broke out, and the dealer was stabbed and left for dead.

The body hadn't even made it to the forensics lab before the landlord coughed up the security footage from the hallway, giving them all they needed to make the arrest.

Traci, despite the current awkwardness between them, was kind enough to send another crew to the morgue for the autopsy. This allowed Gail to escape, rookie in tow, and head back for the relative safety of traffic duty.

Now Gail sat on her couch at the frathouse, nursing a bottle of tequila and watching Netflix without actually paying attention to what was playing on the screen.

Holly being back was possibly one of the most unexpected things that could have happened. Gail had barely made it through the breakup when Steve blew her life up, killing any last meaningful relationships she had with her family. Then she lost her chance at getting Sophie. And now her friends could barely look at her because of what happened with Steve. And now Holly decides to just stroll back into her life again.

' _This world is definitely fucked up.'_ Gail decided, taking another swig.

She was still trying to put the pieces of her life back together. Hell, she was still trying to even find the pieces. She was trying to find a way to exist in a world where her brother was in jail for blowing up an evidence room, where she couldn't trust family and none of her friends trust her.

All that she had was an almost too-supportive junkie ex, and a puppy-love sick dork who graciously didn't kick her ass to the curb when she showed up with a duffle bag in hand. But she was surviving, day by day, even though getting out of bed in the morning was still an impossible task. But she did it. She did it by throwing up walls and blanketing herself with an air of casual indifference that allowed her to function enough to get back out on the streets. To redeem the Peck name one parking citation at a time. And when her emotions were running too rampant to be bottled up, there was tequila and online shopping and sex with a snarky detective with the lights out.

 _'I can't let her back in._ ' Gail decided, gasping a little as the liquor burned her throat on the way down. _'If I do, I'm just going to blow it up again and then I'll be officially ruined forever. Because that's what Pecks do. They blow everything up.'_

She hadn't quite stopped grinning at her self-deprecating wit when there was a knock at the door.

"For gods sakes Chloe, Dov isn't here." Gail said loudly, slamming the bottle on the table a little harder than she should and going to the door. "You were supposed to meet him at that stupid trivia tournament…oh."

Holly stood there, holding an LCBO bag and looking slightly flustered. "Gail." Holly said, flashing that stupid side smile. "I'm sorry for just showing up. But I wanted to talk to you and you weren't at the Penny and your friends sent me here." She said breathlessly. "So I brought a bottle of wine and I was wondering if you would want to just catch up. Like we used to."

Gail stood there, taking in her rambling, flustered, ex-girlfriend standing at the door and listened to her little speech without hearing a word at all. Somehow the only emotion coursing through her at that moment was exhaustion. Exhaustion at the entire situation and her life and how much she just wanted everything to return back to normal. And now Holly was rambling at her door like nothing had ever happened.

"Just get inside already." Gail sighed, walking to the kitchen to get glasses.

* * *

Holly watched Gail stalk off to the kitchen, releasing a breath that she didn't know she was holding. She let herself in, shutting the door behind her and making her way to the couch. Before she had much time to panic over what she was going to say next, Gail appeared and placed two wine glasses on the table before sitting beside her.

"I see you had a head start on me." Holly gestured at the partially empty tequila bottle. Gail ignored her, opening the bottle to pour the wine into the glasses. Holly wasn't sure how to react, deciding to avoid spooking her and let Gail start the conversation when she was ready. She took the moment to observe Gail.

God, she looked tired. The dark circles under her eyes looked like she hadn't slept for weeks. But what was worse was her demeanour, the general slump that was present from the sagging shoulders to the frown on her face. Gail didn't just look tired. She looked _defeated._

Gail interrupted her thoughts, handing Holly her glass before sitting back and appraising her silently.

"You're back." Gail said softly. It wasn't a question.

"They offered me my old job back, with perks." Holly said, taking a sip. "Turns out the FP that replaced me was dirty and they were scrambling to find a replacement. Today was my first shift." Holly brushed her hair back behind her ear. "I'm sorry I ambushed you today, I only got into town two days ago and I haven't had the chance to talk to you properly until now."

Gail's face was completely unreadable. "So you left San Francisco, just like that."

Holly exhaled through her nose. "I hated it there." She admitted. "My boss was a homophobe, and none of my coworkers were willing to back me up when he gave me grief. The cops treated me like I was an idiot, and my landlord was a chronic smoker in the apartment next to mine."

The look in Gail's eyes told her that she wasn't buying it.

"All my friends were here. And I felt from the moment I walked out of your changeroom that I was making a huge mistake." Holly said softly.

Gail stared at her. "You can't do that." She said. "You can't just waltz back into my life without warning and expect to pick up where we left off."

Whoa. Okay. "I don't expect that at all." Holly said somewhat defensively. "But I'm here to stay and I miss you. I miss us. So I wanted the chance to be your friend again."

Gail stared at her flatly, her face in her baseline unimpressed glare before it shifted into something a little more honest. "I think you will find that I'm not the same as I was before."

"That doesn't make me want to know you again any less." Holly gave Gail a small smile, but inside she was more confused than anything. It was clear that something happened, something that made Gail more gun-shy and defensive than she ever was before. It would also explain how much persuading she had to do to fish the address of the place out of Dov at the Penny.

The conversation shifted to more trivial topics, from living arrangements to stories from work. As they talked Gail continued to drink, and three glasses later there was a definite slur to her words.

"And now Traci is just all zombie detective now, pretty much ignoring me at work and just hiding in her office when she's not at scenes. Like it's my fault that Steve blew up Andy."

What? "Gail, what did Steve do?"

Gail stiffened in surprise, her mouth forming a small 'O'. Suddenly and inexplicably, she laughed. "You mean you don't know."

"I don't know what?" Holly asked. She watched Gail take another gulp of wine.

"Turns out my brother planted a bomb at 15 because he was a dirty cop working for Santana, who was also dirty. He also tried to frame Oliver. My father tried to get me to lie on the stand, which I didn't, and now Steve is dodging shanks in prison. None of my family talks to me anymore, and half the division thinks I'm dirty while the other half hated me to begin with."

Holly tried to come up with a reply but couldn't. How do you even respond to that?

Gail curled her legs under her on the couch, staring at the wine glass in her hands. "That's my new normal." She said softly, tracing the rim of the glass with her finger. "Instead of living up to being a Peck, I'm trying to live despite being one. Chances are that I'll be a beat cop for the rest of my life, which would drive my Mother insane if she was talking to me." Gail looked at Holly now, her expression hard. "Are you sure you're okay with hanging out with just a beat cop?"

Holly flinched at the jab. She breathed slowly for a moment, fighting down the caustic retort she had wanted to throw back. This wasn't Gail intentionally trying to poke old wounds. This was Gail who felt she had been too open and had to distance herself to throw the walls back up again. She had changed in a lot of ways, but this was at least familiar.

"You know how everyone has that one family member who sometimes says stupid offensive things?" Holly began slowly. "Like an uncle who makes racist comments or something. You've called them out on it before and it didn't do anything. And they aren't a bad person, they just say really dumb things sometimes and despite that you still love them."

Gail was back to tracing the rim of her glass again and didn't say anything, which Holly took as a sign to continue.

"That's Lisa. She grew up as an inheritance baby with doctors for parents, so snubbing people who weren't in the same tax bracket was practically a family past time for her. I've been trying to break that habit for years, but she still does it."

Holly touched Gail's arm, prompting her to look at her. "I wanted to tell Lisa off the moment she pulled that judgey crap again. But I was going to wait until I was home and could call her without making a scene. Me telling her that I was having fun with you? That wasn't me minimizing our relationship. That was me warning Lisa that I cared about you, in hopes that she would take the hint and back off so we could enjoy the rest of the night… and then I would tear a strip off her later."

Gail set her empty glass on the table, before hugging her torso. "Back then, that was like the hugest fucking deal to me." She breathed. "After a lifetime of having to measure up to expectations from my parents, being shafted by you was the worst thing that you could have done to me." She laughed then, a bitter noise without an ounce of humour present. "Now it's obvious how fucking stupid I was, and how quickly I overreacted."

"We were both idiots." Holly said. "You ignored my calls, and I could have easily tracked you down at work but I didn't. Then I came across that posting in San Francisco and accepted it… just before we decided to try again. And instead of cancelling, I convinced myself that you would pack up and follow me across the continent. Now, _that_ was stupid."

At least that earned a smile from Gail. "Yeah, that was." The blonde muttered sarcastically.

"Since I don't think I ever officially apologized," Holly said, reaching for the tequila bottle and taking a swig. "I am very sorry Gail, for being a shitty girlfriend." She passed the bottle to Gail.

Gail took a gulp. "I don't really do apologies, but I guess I can make an exception." She drawled. "I'm sorry for being an overreactive four year old." Gail stared at the bottle for a moment. "I think I've had too much to drink."

"Should I hide the scissors?"

Gail chuckled. "No, I think I'll be alright. I need to go to bed though."

It was clear that Gail had gone as far as she would for the night. "It's getting late anyways." Holly said, picking up the glasses to bring them to the kitchen. When she returned Gail met her at the door.

"I'm glad that we talked." She said, drawing Gail in for a hug. She had to let go quickly when her body registered just how good it felt to have Gail in her arms again.

"Yeah, that's not really how I communicate." Gail breathed, looking dazed for a moment.

"Too bad. That's how I communicate. Goodnight, officer." Holly smirked, reaching behind her to open the door.

"God, you are such a dork sometimes Lunchbox." Holly laughed as she heard Gail grumble through the closing door. She felt the smile on her face the entire way down the stairs as she exited the building, not caring about her goofy grin when she passed by two guys in the hallway. She was so lost in thought that she didn't even look at them.

"Was that..?" she heard one of them ask as she walked away.

* * *

 _Oliver went all bearded man and canned meat when he was at his lowest. Gail just goes straight for the tequila and occasional episodes of wallowing, like we saw tonight. My kind of girl._

 _I'm not sure yet how long this fic will be, but I will find out as I write it. The next chapter should be up by the end of this week._

 _Next chapter: Oliver._


	3. Optimism

Oliver watched the parade room clear out, the officers heading to their assignments with barely a grumble. After a full day of traffic duty the day before, the cops were grateful to have a normal day on patrol.

Fox, Gail's rookie, stayed behind. "Sir," Curtis began. "I don't think Officer Peck is here today."

"Yep, she called in today. You're on desk duty, rook." Oliver said, clapping Fox on the shoulder. It was a testament to Peck's training that the rookie didn't complain about not being on the street, doing as he was told with a thank you. Fox was quickly establishing himself as the talented one of the bunch.

Not that it was a surprise to Oliver. The kid's scores were high above his peers in the academy, which is why he placed him with Gail.

Gail. Oliver grinned to himself as he took a sip of his coffee, enjoying having his 'Dad' mug back for a change. He was glad having a rookie was working as well for her as he'd hoped. He knew that giving his Peck a rook with some sort of talent would spur her on to be a better T.O., giving her a sense of pride and a reason to get up and go in the morning.

The past few months had been rough on his poor _Petulant Peck_. It had started with the breakup with Holly and the case with the little girl, Sophie. But then the bombs really dropped with her brother and the scandals and apparently losing the adoption fight. He was proud of her for still showing up to work every day and continuing on as though the world didn't just drop out from underneath her.

He watched from afar as Gail retreated back into herself, her normal baseline 'disrespect for everything' shifting into something a little more wary of the world. Oliver wished he could do something to bring Gail back to her normal prickly self, besides just giving her a rookie who could take her frustrations and still grow.

His wish came true when the email landed in his inbox, informing him of the change in personnel in the Forensics Department.

Oliver had never seen Gail happier than when she had been seeing Holly. It was like someone had flipped a switch in his Peck, she was suddenly happier and more confident and walking with a new kind of swagger in her step. It was like Gail went from simply existing to living. So when it was announced that Dr. Stewart was to return to the Forensics Lab beginning the next shift, Oliver felt that this finally might be the break that Gail needed.

Or possibly what might finally destroy her. But he was feeling optimistic.

His phone rang, interrupting his thoughts. Fox was on the line, informing him that a Dr. Stewart was at the front requesting to speak to him. He told Fox to let her in, feeling a grin grow on his face.

"Dr. Stewart! Please come in." Oliver opened the office door for her, directing a nervous looking Holly to one of the chairs in front of his desk. "As great as it is to see you again, I'm really not sure why you're here." Oliver said as he sat down in his chair.

Holly brushed her hair back behind her ear. "I was wondering if you could tell me what happened when I was gone. To Gail, I mean." Her tone indicated that she was half convinced that this conversation was a terrible decision and she should leave immediately.

Apparently Dr. Stewart didn't believe in small talk. He liked that. But first he needed to keep her from bolting out of the office before they actually had the chance to talk about anything important.

"Well." Oliver hemmed, drumming his fingertips into the surface of his desk. " _That_ is a very large subject. Why don't you start by telling me what you know?"

"Well… it's not a lot." admitted Holly. "Just what Gail told me last night."

"Ah, so you were with Gail last night?" He already knew that, from seeing Holly speak with Dov at the Penny before racing out the door.

Holly gave him an amused look. "Something about Steve blowing up Andy and working for a dirty cop?"

Oliver nodded slowly. "I can see why you would be confused by that." He paused for a moment before continuing. "Do you know why your job opened up?"

"Something about a scandal." Holly replied, then her eyes widened. "You aren't telling me the two are connected."

"It was a very large scandal. One of our commissioners was found guilty of working with the mob. Hiding evidence, tweaking reports, and getting other people trapped working for him. I'm guessing that the guy who replaced you was one of them." That was not a guess. He never liked the guy anyways.

"What about Steve? And Andy?"

"Steve was one of the people trapped into working for him. He admitted to planting a bomb in the evidence locker to destroy evidence that could expose Santana. Andy was in the room… but luckily wasn't hurt. Andy, Gail, and a couple others set Steve up to arrest him, who confessed to everything."

Holly sat back in the chair. "Holy shit."

Oliver smiled sadly. "It wasn't a very good day. I wasn't there, because Steve framed me and I was under investigation."

Holly sat there, looking clearly upset. "Why didn't I hear about any of this?" she said softly.

"A lot of it has been kept under wraps from the public." When Holly didn't respond, he ducked his head slightly to meet her eyes. "I take it that seeing Gail yesterday was a bit of a surprise for you."

"I've never seen her like that." Holly breathed. "Not even after we broke up. She's just… so sad and defensive. Like she just expects everything to hurt her."

It eased his worries to see how bothered Holly was by the whole situation. It seemed like she was getting it.

"Gail is an incredible person." He started slowly. "Everything that's happened, she's found a way to put it behind her and become a better cop. An excellent T.O. even. But that isn't to say she's done figuring it all out. She has a long way to go."

Oliver sat back as he appraised Holly slowly. He had to tread carefully, to drive his point home without offending her too badly. "It's not going to be easy. On anyone."

The look on Holly's face told him that she was at least a little offended. "I know that."

"I'm glad you do. Really." He soothed. "I needed to make sure you did. Because I think that if Gail decides to pursue some sort of relationship with you again, she's going to latch on pretty hard. And you need to know what you're up against."

"You don't need to give me an out," grumbled Holly. "I care about her entirely too much to dump her now. Especially now."

"So you're back for good then?" This was promising.

Holly gave him a crooked smile. "For good." she confirmed. "I wanted to come back the moment I left."

His cell buzzed in his pocket, telling him that the paperwork he was waiting for landed in his inbox. "Good! That's good… Now, unless there's something else I could do for you, darlin', I'm afraid I have some reports I really need to get finished…" Oliver said apologetically.

Holly stood. "No, I need to get back too. But thank you, for telling me all that." She looked away for a moment, her cheeks reddening slightly. "And for keeping an eye on Gail."

"Of course, yeah." Oliver nodded, walking around the desk to open the door for her. After a somewhat awkward goodbye he watched her walk away from the office, before turning and sighing.

"Optimism." He muttered to himself, tapping his fingers on his desk.

* * *

The light shining in her face was pissing her off, Gail decided drowsily. She sat up with a groan, squinting into the bright sunlight that was glaring into her room. Her clock read 11:00am.

' _Eleven.'_ she thought. After waking up to her alarm at four to place the call into the system that she would be absent for the day, she must have fallen back asleep instantly. Her blinds weren't closed because she hadn't slept this long in weeks.

Instantly Gail remembered. _'Holly's back. She's back and we talked and maybe things are sort of okay with us.'_ She hid the smile she felt grow on her face with her hand. Happiness welled up in her for a moment, and she thought she might actually laugh from it. Holly was back.

She forced herself to stop. It was entirely too early to read into anything. And if recent events were anything to go by, this was going to get screwed up too. Probably by her.

' _Coffee.'_ Gail decided. Coffee was needed before she could even begin to process this.

The sounds of Death Domain surprised her when she opened the door, expecting the house to be empty. Dov was sitting on the sofa when she entered the living room.

"Shouldn't you be at work?" she asked, not bothering with good morning.

"Shouldn't you?" Dov retorted without looking away from the screen.

"I called in." Gail yawned, walking to the kitchen. "I needed a day off."

Dov paused the game, turning to face the kitchen. "We finished our case yesterday, so Jarvis gave us the day off."

Gail grunted noncommittally as she poured cream into her coffee.

"In fact," Dov continued. "We all went to the Penny to celebrate. There were a ton of people there."

Where the hell was he going with this? She was used to the small talk coming from his worse half, not him. Gail cursed as some of the sugar fell off the spoon before making it into her mug, spilling onto the counter.

"It's too bad you weren't there. But you know who was there?"

Gail froze. Shit. He knew. She suddenly remembered Holly saying something about her friends sending her here.

She turned slowly. "When have I ever cared about your social life, Dov." she said, resorting to sarcasm.

Dov smirked. "Funny. I try not to pay too much attention to yours either, but it doesn't take a detective to notice that there were two wine glasses in the sink last night."

"That's good, considering you aren't one yet." Gail hissed as she sat down at the table. "And if you are expecting me to share details, I think Chloe's _Sound of Music_ chirpiness has finally melted your brain."

Dov looked at her with that stupid knowing smile on his face. "You're in a good mood. Or at least, a better mood than lately. You two talked?"

Gail took a sip of her coffee. "Dov," she sighed. "I don't really do girl talk. Especially not with you."

"But did you at least do it with Holly?" he pressed. When Gail shot him a scathing look, he held his hands up defensively. "Super unfortunate choice of words. But Holly and I talked at the Penny and it sounds like she is back for good and…" he scratched his cheek uncomfortably, "Well things have sucked for you and I just want you to be happy Gail."

Gail stared at him flatly, pressing her lips together to hide her smile. "You've been spending too much time with the Princess." She said finally, but her tone was warmer than before. "You've gotten all sappy on me."

Before Dov could respond, she stretched and yawned loudly. "Tell you what. Give me an hour to finish my coffee and eat and shower, then we will play a round of Death Domain. If you win, we girl talk. But when I win, you butt out of my business. Okay?"

"Deal." Dov said, turning back to face the TV and unpause the game.

Of course in the end, Gail won.

* * *

 _Ollie is a believer in true love. Or at least, Celery is a believer and has converted him. Luckily for Gail, he discovered he had a potent allergy to yellow jasmine when she brought her work home with her that one time._

 _Also, Gail has more friends in her court than she realized. It's easy to lose sight of that when shit hits the fan in your life, but slowly things will get better and not so terrible and you will adjust to a new normal. What goes down, must come up right? It's just a little more difficult to achieve._

 _Next chapter will be up sometime next week. I got this one out early since I have a busy weekend. Thank you all for the lovely reviews!_


	4. Vulnerability

_Lunchbox: Why don't you come over tonight, I'm off shift at 7. I'll make you dinner, and I've got a great bottle of Brolio. It was great talking to you the other night._

Gail stared at her phone. About a dozen questions swirled in her head, ranging from _'how the hell did she manage to get her old phone number back?_ ' to _'really, you're going to say that?'_

Before she could figure out a response, her phone buzzed again.

 _Lunchbox: And no, the night will not end with me asking you to move across the continent with me._

And again.

 _Lunchbox: Okay, maybe bringing that up again was in bad taste. It seemed funnier in my head._

And again.

 _Lunchbox: But anyways, I'd really like to see you again._

Gail smirked as she tapped out a reply.

 _Gail: Stop rambling nerd, and tell me where you live._

 _Lunchbox: Aren't you wondering how I got your number again?_

 _Gail: Hi Traci_

Holly responded with her address.

Gail huffed a laugh before tucking her phone back into her pocket, turning back to her paperwork to wonder absently what she should wear. Then she remembered that Holly was currently spending the day with Traci, and clearly had been talking about her.

 _'Hmm.'_

* * *

Holly turned back to the scene, tucking her phone securely away in her bag. "Thanks, Traci." She said, pulling a pair of gloves out of her pocket.

Traci smiled. "You're welcome." Together they walked across the field, until they reached the body that had been pulled from the bushes. "But don't think you're off the hook for telling me what's going on between you two."

"First responders moved her, right?" Holly asked, changing the subject. She squatted beside the body and tucked a piece of the woman's blonde hair away from her face.

"Yep." Traci said, pulling out her notepad. "Joggers found her and called EMS. The paramedics declared her obviously dead when they arrived."

"Hmm." Holly picked up the woman's hand, moving her fingers. "She's barely into rigor, only her fingers are stiff. That's not usually enough for the medics to declare obviously dead…" She lifted the girl's shirt, peering at her sides and noting the temperature of the torso.

"Look at this bruising." She pointed to the discolouration along the length of the torso. "Paramedics have strict criteria for declaring someone DOA. Since she was found supine, they probably mistook the bruising for post-mortem blood pooling."

"So what are you thinking?" Traci asked.

"She died very recently, probably just over an ago. But it's been cold enough for her core to become centrally cold, and combined with the bruising it's an easy mistake to make."

"Do you know a cause of death?"

"Hard to say…" mused Holly, before pulling the body onto its side so she could look at the back. "Whoa nelly… I can't confirm it for sure without an autopsy, but with the amount of bruising on her flanks I'm guessing massive internal hemorrhage."

"Okay. Let me know when you have the results? I need to give Homicide a call." Traci said.

Holly raised a brow. "Can't handle this on your own, Detective Sergeant? Congratulations, by the way."

"I'm just avoiding stepping on toes." Traci sighed. "Detective Anderson is still establishing herself in 15, and things are awkward enough between us to begin with."

Holly was just opening her mouth to ask why, when one of her techs waved her over to look at something. By the time she was done, Traci was already walking away while on her phone.

 _'What else did I miss?'_ she wondered, before getting engrossed in her work.

* * *

She had just finished running the small bowel when Traci knocked on the door.

"Is this a good time?" Traci asked, poking her head in.

Holly put down her instruments, peeling off her first glove before bundling it with the second and tossing both in the garbage. "Sure come in, I'm pretty much done with my exam."

"Did you find anything?"

"Female, in her 30's. Cause of death was massive internal bleeding from a lacerated right kidney." Holly said, peering at her notes. "She also had a fractured left rib, and three broken metacarpals on her right hand, along with all the soft tissue damage she sustained." Holly looked at Traci and tried to keep her tone professional. "She was quite the fighter. All the injuries are fresh, I'm guessing within 48 hours."

Traci pursed her lips. "Was she sexually assaulted?"

"There's signs of recent activity, but no semen or pubic hair that could be used for an ID. The degree of bruising in the area is less than normal as well, so it's possible that she was drugged when it occurred. I'm running a tox screen as we speak." Holly felt sick as she spoke the words.

Traci sighed. "So nothing that could help us."

Holly shook her head. "Unfortunately not. Any luck on your end?"

"We're still looking for an ID for her, but so far nothing. No one in the area saw anything, and traffic cams for that timeframe show nothing. Anderson's having her officers canvas the neighbourhood as we speak."

Holly put her paperwork down. "What's the deal with you and her, anyways?" she asked tentatively.

Traci looked slightly chagrined. "It's just awkward." She sighed. "Anderson was Steve's old partner. She had nothing to do with anything… but it's just another reminder of how little any of us knew him. He played us all for fools, especially me."

Holly was confused. "Why you especially?"

Traci looked surprised. "We were dating… for a while. I forgot you weren't around for that. But I let him in, even introducing him to my son, and now Leo's lost another father figure." She said, before pausing and smiling sadly. "So even though it's immature, the easiest way for me to deal with it is to just avoid the people that remind me of him."

"Like Gail?" Holly blurted before she could stop herself. "I'm sorry. It's none of my business, forget I said anything." She apologised, feeling her face grow red.

Traci looked guilty. "No, I deserve that. I thought I could deal with it at first, but as time went on I just kept seeing her nametag and seeing Steve. It's not fair to her, but I'm trying." Traci narrowed her eyes then, looking at Holly. "So are you two back together then?"

"I don't know." After putting Traci in the hotseat, it was only fair to be honest. "We're having supper tonight… but I need to earn back her trust before we can even consider putting a label on… whatever it is we are."

Traci gave her a gentle smile. "I'm glad. Everyone deserves to be happy, _especially_ her." Holly noticed Traci's eyes grow distant as she spoke, before they sharpened to stare at her. "Gail is going to try and push you away, because that's how she deals with things. Just stand your ground with her and be there anyways, no matter what. That's the only way she will let anyone in." Traci's tone was almost a plea for Holly to listen.

Holly silently thought that Gail was an idiot for thinking all her friends hated her. She cleared her throat before straightening her notes on the table in front of her. "I'm here to stay Traci, but thank you. The tox is going to need a few more hours to process, but I'll have my assistant courier it over as soon as it's done." She said, steering the conversation back to a professional level.

Traci took the hint, nodding. "Thanks, Dr. Stewart. I appreciate it." Her phone began ringing, so she gave a slight wave as goodbye before striding out of the room to answer it.

Holly heard the double meaning in Traci's words and smiled.

* * *

Gail sat on the couch, taking another sip of the wine and watched Holly busy herself in the kitchen.

The night had been wonderful… so far. After the initial awkwardness subsided, Gail found herself slipping back into the familiar banter they had always shared. The conversation flowed effortlessly while they enjoyed the chicken alfredo Holly had made (did she remember the allergy to tomatoes, or was that just luck?), and Gail couldn't remember the last time she had actually enjoyed a meal like she did tonight.

Gail caught herself staring a few times, watching the way Holly's eyes sparkled at her story of Chris and his meat cocktails, or the way she smiled crookedly while concentrating on twirling the pasta on her fork before bringing it to her mouth. It was still unbelievable to her that Holly was back, and willing to try a friendship with her again.

If that little voice of doubt in her head could just be quiet though, the night would be perfect.

Now, dinner was finished and she sat on the couch with a full stomach and a glass of wine. Gail watched Holly work in the kitchen.

"Are you sure you don't want help, Lunchbox?" she asked.

Holly turned and smirked. "Gail Peck, offering to help with dishes. Apparently I did miss a lot."

Gail huffed, feigning offense. "Just for that, don't expect an offer next time."

Holly cocked a brow. "A bit presumptuous, are we Officer?" she teased, walking over with two small plates.

Why did her powers of sarcasm fail her when she needed it the most? Change the subject, Gail.

"No more food, I'm going to have a food baby." She groaned, placing a hand on her stomach dramatically as Holly set something very chocolately in front of her.

"I've seen you eat half a box of donuts in one go, Peck." Holly said, amused. "I think you can handle a slice of chocolate cake." Holly settled on the couch beside her, holding the plate on her lap. "Besides, it's dark chocolate. It pairs nicely with the wine."

"That seems like a convenient excuse to eat chocolate." Gail teased, picking up her glass to take another sip. It didn't escape her how closely Holly was sitting beside her.

The music that had been playing softly in the background changed songs. Gail felt her cheeks flush as she recognized the new song, and beside her Holly seemed to do the same.

"Seriously, try it." Holly said, breaking the silence between them. "Red wine and chocolate go great together." Holly cut a piece off with her fork, offering it to Gail.

Gail felt the buzz of the wine, the warmth it provided intensified by _Dark Doo Wop_ playing in the background. She closed the distance between them, leaning forwards to accept the cake from Holly's fork.

"You're right." She said softly, her eyes not leaving Holly's. "It is good." Every ounce of her wanted to lean forward and kiss her. Holly gave her a searching look, looking very much like she was feeling the same.

In the end, it was the hesitant concern in Holly's eyes that emboldened her to give in and meet her lips to Holly's.

God, had her lips always been this soft?

The fire that had been smouldering all night ignited at once, and Gail needed more. Her lips moved desperately against Holly's, Holly's tongue meeting hers as her arm reached up to bury a hand in Gail's hair. They moved even closer together, Holly all but sitting on Gail's lap as they kissed furiously and repeatedly and passionately. Her nose kept Holly's bumping glasses to make them askew, but neither of them cared.

This… was right. This was what she was missing. At this moment, Gail's mind was blissfully blank as she reconnected with the one person who ever really _got her_ , on every level. Everything else, everything that had happened in the time in between was gone, flying out of Gail's head for the first time since Steve's arrest. For the first time her inner voice had shut up and was letting her enjoy the touch of Holly, her warmth, her smell, as Holly's tongue moved with hers and Holly's hand crept from her head to brush against her breast. This was Holly, her silly rambling Holly that she could trust, who she could let down her walls for and know that she would not turn away from what she saw.

Gail suddenly felt horribly vulnerable, freezing up and feeling like there wasn't possibly enough air in the room. Holly must have felt her stiffen, because she sat back and looked at Gail with concern. "Hey." Holly whispered. "It's okay."

It wasn't okay. Gail balled her fists on her knees before getting up and putting space between them. "I just…" Gail couldn't get a sentence out, taking large gulps of air and feeling a painful squeezing in her chest. "Holly, I'm having chest pain." She gasped.

Holly got up, keeping a careful distance in between. "Gail, honey, you're hyperventilating." She said gently. "I need you to focus on your breathing, look at me and breathe with me, okay?"

Gail reached out to Holly, who took her hand in hers. She stared at Holly's brown eyes, trying to match her breathing and exhaling with pursed lips. She focused on the gentle pressure of Holly's hand squeezing hers, feeling the tension beginning to loosen in her chest. Holly began to speak, nonsensical science jargon that Gail understood little of but drank in, allowing the words to wash over her and calm her. Eventually her breathing calmed, and her pain was gone entirely.

Holly met her eyes with a gentle expression. "Are you better now?" she asked.

Gail felt horrible. "I'm sorry." Her voice sounded pathetically small and broken.

"Hey." Holly said, squeezing her hand. "Don't be. You've been through hell, and I pushed you too fast. It was an anxiety attack, they happen. It's okay, Gail."

Holly sounded honest. But Gail still felt like shit and needed to get out of there. "I think I'm going to head home for the night." She said softly, taking her hand back.

"Are you sure? Maybe you should stay for a bit longer?" Holly asked, her expression worried.

Gail shook her head quickly. "No, no I'm fine. Thank you for dinner." She walked over to the door, grabbing her coat and purse and pulling on her shoes.

"Text me when you get home then, okay?" Holly asked, following her to the door. "But seriously Gail, it's okay."

Gail opened the door behind her. "I know." She said softly. "I'll see you at work, Lunchbox."

Holly smiled gently at her as Gail turned away to walk to her car.

* * *

Dov walked into the office as Traci was pulling on her jacket, ready to go home to see Leo before he went to bed.

"Hey, so courier just dropped off the tox report for Jane Doe." Dov said, holding up the open envelope.

"Oh good. Anything useful?" she asked, picking up her keys from her desk.

"A couple drugs we can try tracing." He shrugged. "Ketamine and Acepromazine."

Oh god. Traci felt sick, dropping her keys on the ground.

"Hey, what's wrong?" He asked, rushing forwards to steady her.

Traci didn't trust herself to speak in that moment.

* * *

 _A wild plot appears._


	5. Putting the Pieces Together

Holly looked up from her paperwork when a knock sounded at her door. "Come in." she called.

A woman that she didn't recognize poked her head in. "Hey, sorry to interrupt. I was just wondering if we could go over some case notes." She said, before holding out her hand. "I'm Detective Anderson, from 15. I don't believe we've met." The woman's eyes travelled slightly as Holly stood, making her wonder if she was being checked out. "But you can call me Frankie."

"It's nice to meet you, I'm Dr. Stewart." Holly said, shaking her hand. "Please, have a seat. Have you and Det. Nash gotten any breaks in the case?"

Frankie tilted her head slightly. "We've gotten a name, her coworkers were concerned when she didn't show up for work two days in a row. I've taken over lead on the case, Nash has been reassigned."

Huh. Weird. "Oh. Okay. Well, what would you like to go over with me?" Holly said, somewhat awkwardly.

"We think this case may be connected to two others, based on the drugs that were found in her system." Frankie said, placing two folders on the desk. "The first one was about three years ago. A doctor who lost his licence was working as a cab driver, and would pick up call girls, drive them home, then come back to drug and kidnap them. The girls fit the same age range and description as our vic. The perp, Perik, would bring them home to rape them and care for them before killing and dumping the body."

Frankie paused and sat back in her chair. "We caught him when he kidnapped an undercover officer who was investigating the case. Luckily we were able to rescue her, but in the process a detective was killed." She said, her voice getting softer at the end. She cleared her throat and continued. "The second case was a copycat less than a year after. Same MO, same taxicab as Perik. We feel that if Perik was able to train an apprentice once, he could have done it again."

Holly nodded slowly, flipping through the first folder. It contained photocopies of the autopsy reports for the victims found, along with the hospital file for the officer who was rescued. The names were blacked out for privacy.

"So you want me to compare this vic to the previous ones. I should have no problem getting this done in a few hours." Holly said. Her phone buzzed on the desk beside her, distracting her momentarily. The preview showed that it was a text from Gail, asking about coffee.

"Oh." Frankie said softly, looking surprised. She stared at Holly momentarily, before looking up to check the certifications that were framed on the wall. "You're Holly Stewart."

"Uh, yes." Holly was confused.

Frankie looked slightly disoriented. "This explains why Peck won't return my calls." The woman muttered under her breath, while getting up from her chair. "Yeah, so, if you could get the results to me, that would be great. Thanks, Doc."

What the hell was going on? "Wait, do you mean Gail?" she called as Frankie all but ran out of the room.

She didn't get an answer.

* * *

"Hey." Gail's voice sounded from the doorway.

Holly looked up from the files she was reading to see Gail standing there with two coffees. "Hey, thanks. I was just thinking I needed one." She said, moving the papers off to the side.

"Hmm, busy case?" Gail asked, eyeing the stack of papers. She sat down in the chair in front of the desk.

"Yeah, kinda." Holly replied, taking a sip with a hum. Gail clearly remembered how she liked her coffee. "They want me to compare my findings yesterday to one a couple years back. Something about a copycat… either way it's awful." Holly placed her cup on the desk with a slight shudder, remembering some of the details she'd read over. "So how are you doing?" She asked, changing the subject.

"Hmm?" Gail replied, somewhat distantly. She had been staring distractedly at the files.

"I mean, from last night. I'm glad you made it home alright."

"Yeah, I'm okay." Gail sighed. "I'm sorry for ruining the night." Holly could tell she was embarrassed by the way Gail avoided her eyes, she mentally kicked herself for bringing it up again.

"Hey, I told you its fine." Holly assured her, taking another sip. "I think it's better that we slowed down anyways." Because there is no way that Holly would have had the strength to stop otherwise. She had enjoyed a nice cold shower that night… and this morning.

Gail nodded, chewing on the inside of her lip. "So I'm flying solo today. Which sucks because the D's have no work for me, and there's no rookie to take care of my grunt work." She joked, clearly wanting to change the subject.

Holly pulled her mind back into the conversation with some effort. "Hey, speaking of detectives, what's the deal with you and Anderson?"

Gail stiffened. "What do you mean?" Her voice had the air of trying to sound casual, but failing.

Holly tilted her head. "I mean that she mumbled something about a Peck not returning her calls before running out of here."

"Ah." Gail scratched her forehead. "Right."

Holly looked at her, and thought she saw guilt flash over her face before it closed off.

"I see." She said slowly, understanding dawning. She fought down the waves of hurt and disgust that welled up at the idea of Gail being with another person, with _that woman._

"Holly, I'm sorry." Gail looked absolutely miserable. "It's just…"

"No, it's okay." Holly cut her off. She couldn't stand to hear the excuses. She looked away, taking a deep breath before forcing a smile. "It's fine. I was gone for a long time and you didn't think I was coming back."

It wasn't fine. She couldn't even kiss Gail without setting off a panic attack, and yet screwing some detective was apparently okay.

"No it's not, and I think maybe we should talk about this?" Gail pleaded.

Holly stood up. "We will. But not now. I have a lot of work to do, so you should probably go." Holly couldn't look at Gail in the eyes.

"Yeah. Okay." Gail replied softly. "Call me when you can, okay?" With one last look, Gail left the office.

Holly stood and stared at her desk. She knew she wasn't being fair, but the idea of Gail sleeping around cut her deeper than expected. "Damn it." She whispered, blinking back the tears.

The folders sat on her desk, waiting for her. She took a deep shuddering breath, buckling down and forcing back her emotions for the time being. Which probably wasn't healthy, but she had a job to do.

* * *

Gail tossed her half full coffee in the garbage, fuming. _'What the hell is Frankie's problem?_ ' she thought furiously as she got into her cruiser. She was going to kill her.

Gail strode quickly into the building, searching the offices for Anderson. When she reached the office at the end of the hall, what she saw stopped her short in her tracks.

Frankie caught sight of her, looking a bit like a deer in headlights. But Gail only had eyes for Luke Callaghan standing beside her.

"Callaghan…" she began, walking tentatively into the room. "What are you doing here?" Her eyes raked the whiteboard behind them, taking in the sight of several blond-haired women.

"I'm working on a case, Peck." Luke said carefully. "You shouldn't be in here."

Luke. A copycat case. Blonde haired women. Gail put the pieces together.

"Is he out?" she asked, clearing her throat to keep her voice from breaking. She couldn't say his name.

"Gail…" Frankie began, but Gail cut her off.

"Shut up!" she snapped. "You've said enough for one day, Anderson, so just shut up." She looked at Callaghan. "Luke, _is he out?_ "

Callaghan silently appraised her. Gail knew that she probably looked completely unhinged, but she deserved to know and he knew that.

"Perik is still in Millbourne." Luke said finally. "We have reason to believe that we are looking at another copycat."

Relief whooshed out of her at the same time the fear set in. Her knees weakened, so she leaned against the desk behind her. God, today was just an absolute shit day.

Perik was still locked up. But now some copycat was running around, probably after her, and they had no idea what they were looking for. "What do we know?" she asked, finding her voice.

Callaghan frowned. "Gail, there's no way you will be allowed anywhere near this."

"Absolutely not." Oliver's voice sounded behind her, making her jump. She didn't even hear him come in. "Gail, come with me." Oliver instructed with a wave.

A thought occurred to her. "Wait." She said, holding her hand out. "Holly doesn't know, does she?"

"Dr. Stewart?" Luke looked confused. Frankie stepped forwards.

"She doesn't, Gail." She assured. "I made sure. The reports I gave her are without names."

Gail glared at her. "But you didn't have any issue telling her all about us, did you?"

"Enough." Oliver interjected, tugging on her sleeve. "Gail, we're getting lunch. Let them work."

Gail allowed herself to be led out of the room, she was starting to feel sick anyways. "I don't think I can eat, Oliver." She mumbled.

"Then we will sit there and stare at it." Oliver nodded. "But I'm getting you out of here, because you kinda look like you're gonna pass out."

Gail knew he was right. She also had no idea what else to do with herself, so she followed him. Out of anyone, she could trust Oliver.

* * *

Oliver picked the booth in the back of the mostly empty diner, guiding Gail into the bench with a slight touch to her shoulder. Poor Gail looked absolutely shattered.

"You stay here, make yourself comfortable darlin'. I'll take care of ordering." Oliver said, before heading up to the counter. Gail acknowledged him with a barely audible okay.

He came back with two styrofoam bowls of soup. "The wonton soup here is the best." He declared. "It's exactly what you need on a day like today."

Gail picked up her spoon, trying a little of the broth before toying with one of the wontons without eating it.

"So, Holly came to see me the other day." He started, before slurping up one of the noodles. "Yep. She wanted to get filled in on all the Steve business, since apparently you suck at explaining things."

Gail gave her bowl a small smirk. "I was drunk."

That actually explained a lot. "Well, we had a great little chat, her and I." Oliver paused long enough for Gail to look up from her bowl. "The next little bit is going to suck kiddo, I'm not going to bother trying to lie. But I think, maybe, you have a great person there that you can hang out with to get your mind off things."

Gail was quiet, back to stirring her soup with her spoon. "I don't know about that. Not anymore."

"Why not?"

Gail took another sip of broth. "She found out about Anderson." She mumbled.

Oliver nodded slowly. "Ah. So that's why you were really to rip her head off back there." Her and Anderson was not a surprise to Oliver, he knew from the moment he met Frankie that she would get on famously with Gail. Two petulant, sarcastic cops, both getting over Steve in their own way.

His suspicion was confirmed when he saw them sneaking off after the McSwarek wedding, but the relationship never really took off. At work they mostly ignored eachother, occasionally sniping when they happened to work together. It was the same at the Penny, although they would occasionally leave at the same time.

Gail looked up at him, a spark of anger in her eyes. "She had no business running her mouth to Holly. And now Holly can't even look at me." She put her spoon on the table a little harder than necessary. "Things were finally getting back to some sort of normal," she continued, "but I ruined our date night when I freaked out when she got too close, and now this."

Her voice got very soft, her shoulders slumping as the fight fell out of her. "And now between her and Perik, I don't even know what to do anymore." Her voice broke at the end and she pressed her lips tightly together.

It tore at Oliver to see her this way. He also silently cursed whatever cosmos out there deigned to dump all it's crap on his Peck. "Well kiddo, that really bites." He sighed. He ate another noodle, buying time to think. "Do you love Frankie?"

"No." Gail replied, surprised at the question. "Not even remotely. She was just there, and she was someone who actually got me with the Steve thing." She paused for a moment. "Frankie knew that I was still trying to get over Holly, and was okay with it. We had talked about it. And most of the times, I felt like total crap after." Her voice trailed off towards the end.

"Well, does Holly know that?" he pressed.

Gail stared at him, before shaking her head in a quick motion.

He gave her a small smile. "So right now, Holly just needs a little time to get the shock of hearing about it. And, if I know her, she's going to want to talk." He jabbed his spoon her way. "So you need to make sure that _she_ knows that Frankie was a bad decision on your part, and you were just trying to get over your feelings for her, and that it's been over for a while now."

Gail huffed a bit, which was probably a failed attempt at a laugh. "That easy, eh?"

"Relationships are never easy, darlin'" he replied. "But in the end, with the right person, it always ends up being worth it."

"You've been spending too much time with that witch, Ollie." She teased softly, ducking her head to try one of the wontons in her soup. "You're getting soft."

Oliver laughed. "Keep it up Peck, and I won't go weapons shopping with you after all."

* * *

Holly adjusted her glasses before raising a hand to knock on the office door. With the courier actually being sick and her assistants busy, she had been forced her to deliver her results by hand.

She wasn't looking forwards to seeing Frankie Anderson. She wasn't even sure if she would be able to look at her. But the results were important, and Holly would never let her personal life interfere with a case.

A blond detective opened the door, one that she hadn't seen in years and couldn't quite remember the name of. "Hi, I'm here with the results that Det. Anderson asked for." She said.

Behind him, Frankie cleared her throat. "Right, Dr. Stewart, thanks." She sounded strangely apologetic. "Were you able to find anything?"

"A couple things." Holly said, placing the report on the table in front of her to avoid looking at Anderson. "To start with the obvious, this time the body had a significant amount of blunt force trauma while the others didn't. So if it is a copycat, we are looking at someone significantly more inclined to violence." She said, pointing to a picture of the victims back. "But that leads me to my next point. The other cases had evidence of medical care administered prior to their death. This victim did not."

"So, someone who enjoys beating their victim, with little interest in caring for them." Holly finally remembered his name, Luke Callaghan.

"More than just that." Holly continued. "First two times, the drugs were administered intravenously through the external jugular, likely by syringe. That takes a significant amount of medical training and practice, especially when you consider the victims struggling. But this time? I found an injection point on the vic's thigh, in the vastus lateralus. An intramuscular injection requires almost next to no medical knowledge to administer, it's even the same route and location used for EpiPen's given for severe anaphylaxis."

"Okay." Luke said, rubbing his temple. "But if it's easier, that doesn't necessarily rule out that the perp has medical knowledge."

"IM is slower than IV though. The victim would have had time to struggle, which was likely when she got a good enough punch in to fracture the metacarpals in her hand. So IV would have been preferable."

"Good for her." Frankie muttered.

"Adam Sawyer did go to medical school with Perik, which explains why he chose IV." Luke mused. "Okay. So let's assume that our guy has no medical training. We still need to figure out who he received instruction from: Perik or Sawyer."

"ACP is uncommon for human administration in North America, although it's still used in many places overseas for cost reasons." Holly thought out loud. "It's not completely impossible to find dosing information online, but to be able to calculate accurate dosing based on weight for both IV and IM? You need to know the drug well."

"Perik worked in Somolia for _Doctors Without Borders_." Luke said slowly.

"So, we need to have a chat with Perik then." Frankie finished his thought.

"And for that," Gail's tired voice sounded behind Holly, "You'll need me, I guess."

* * *

 _I'll warn you, I'm going to be rough on our Gail. But this fic will end happily, I promise._

 _The hardest part about doing a Perik fic is that it's been so well done already in many of my favourite stories, including the ones that I've read multiple times (looking at you, ChapstickLez). I keep having to go back to make sure that I'm not copying phrases and ideas verbatim._

 _Thank you as always for the reviews!_


	6. Communication

"And for that, you'll need me, I guess." Gail said flatly, having heard the tail end of the conversation while she was coming down the hall to look for Holly. She should have been filled with dread, but she was just exhausted.

She also knew from the moment he was involved, she would end up facing him again.

"Gail? What…" Holly looked back and forth between Gail and Luke, confused.

"Yeah, _that_ is not happening." Oliver said, stepping in the room from behind Gail while shaking his head. "Nope. Absolutely not."

Gail weakly protested "Oliver…" at the same time Luke said "Shaw, you know we don't have a choice."

" _I said_ _no_." That was the closest Gail had ever seen Oliver to yelling. Usually when he was angry, his voice would get softer, and sentences shorter. This was beyond that. "Callaghan, I am her sergeant and I am saying no. Figure out another way. Peck, my office." He pointed at the door, his tone dangerously serious. "Now."

Gail looked at Holly, who was clearly confused by the entire situation.

"Peck!"

Gail followed Oliver out of the room, not daring to argue with him. When they reached his office, he closed the doors and turned to face her with a stormy expression.

"Gail, you are not allowed to have any part of this investigation." He said, back to his soft serious voice.

She was beginning to get annoyed. "Oliver, I've done this before. It needs to happen if we are going to catch this loser."

"Exactly my point. You've done it before." Oliver nodded. "But the thing is Gail, you should have never gone in the first place. God…" he turned away for a moment, rubbing his forehead. "I've had a taste of what you went through, with Ford. Just a taste."

He turned back to look at her, and to her surprise his eyes looked a bit wet. "The idea of having to face Ford again scares the crap out of me. And I'm fortunate that he's dead, really. I am. But _you_?" he gestured her way. "You not only made it through that psycho, and volunteered to face him again. But a third time?"

Oliver paused, before swallowing hard and looking up at the ceiling. "Well, it's just not happening. I won't allow it." He said thinly.

Gail felt a small wave of affection for this man, who clearly cared more than both her parents did put together. She stepped forwards to hug him, not sure of how else to communicate how she was feeling. After a moment he returned the embrace.

"Alright darlin', it's alright." He said in a gruff voice, patting her back comfortingly. He pulled back after a moment, holding Gail's shoulders at arm's reach.

"Now, I want you to forget about this whole mess. Luke is gonna handle it, and Anderson. But for now, you just focus on fixing things with your girl. Okay?" He squeezed her shoulders briefly with his hands. "So take the rest of today off, and take care of it." After a moment's contemplation he added "Take tomorrow off too."

"No." Gail objected. "I'm working tomorrow. Otherwise I'm going to sit at home and drink, and I do that too much to begin with. I need to be on the street, Ollie."

"Okay, okay, fine." Oliver relented. "But you're staying out of it, I mean it Peck. When you get here, you're taking your rookie and going."

"I'll try." Gail said darkly. She had the feeling that things were not going to be that simple. With Perik, it never was.

* * *

Frankie watched Gail leave behind Oliver and sighed. _'God, what a mess.'_

Left behind, Holly looked more confused than ever. "Okay, could someone _please_ tell me what Gail has to do with this?"

Luke looked meaningfully at Frankie, eyebrows raised.

' _Asshole.'_ She thought with a huff, stepping forwards. "Look, come here." She said, gesturing into the hall. She directed Holly into the empty room next door, closing the door.

When she turned, Holly was standing there with her arms crossed. _'Great, another fan.'_ She thought, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. And she hadn't even slept with this one.

"Okay, look." Frankie began, rubbing a temple. "To begin with, I'm not telling you what Peck has to do with all this."

Holly opened her mouth to protest, but Frankie interrupted. "No. Because it's not my story to tell. When Peck wants to tell you, she will. But I'm not doing that to her."

"Then why did you even pull me in here?" Holly asked, frustrated.

"Because right now, Peck needs someone. And I think it should be you." Frankie couldn't even believe she was about to have this conversation. Gail owed her, big time.

"I don't really see how anything I do is your business." remarked Holly coolly.

"It is, actually." Frankie took a breath to avoid snapping at her, before continuing on. "As I'm guessing you figured out, Gail and I had a… thing."

She noted the hurt that flashed across Holly's face. "We were both getting over Steve… and she was the only person that understood what it was like to have your _entire reputation_ questioned because of one idiot." Holly didn't respond, which she took as a sign to continue.

"The first time, she was trashed. We had just come from a wedding… look Holly, I know this sucks, but you need to listen to me." Frankie urged when Holly started to shake her head at Frankie's words.

"It was only you, okay? For Gail, it was always only you." Holly stopped to stare at Frankie. "The first night, she cried after. I don't even think she remembers. The next morning she was so upset when she saw me…"

Frankie's voice trailed off slightly as she remembered that morning. Gail had been devastated… Something she would never admit, but it hurt her ego quite a bit. So she left to pour them some coffee, mostly to give Gail time to pull herself together. Obnoxiously, her roommates _Muppet_ and _BoyGiant_ had stared the entire time. When she got back she handed Gail the mug, and they talked. Gail told her about Holly, the adoption, her parents refusing to talk to her; everything.

Gail made it clear that she was emotionally unavailable, and in no way fit for any sort of relationship. Frankie expected that to be the last of it, until a week later when Gail was downing shots of tequila at the Penny and texted her for a pickup. It had been quick, and in the dark, and Frankie wasn't allowed to stay. They met once more in that fashion, because Gail Peck was a hell of a good lay and Frankie was thirsty, dammit.

Eventually, without discussing it, they stopped. That had been a couple weeks ago.

"Look." Frankie cleared her throat. "It hasn't happened in a while, and it never happened unless she was wasted. As far as she knew, she was never going to see you again. You left the country!" she argued, gesturing wildly with one arm.

To her surprise, Holly looked slightly abashed instead of angry. "I know it's not fair." The woman muttered. "I just didn't expect it."

"She was trying to move on with her life." Frankie urged. "So don't fault her for that. But right now, she is dealing with something ridiculously shitty, and I think you need to be there for her. Because I think you are the only one she's ever let in."

Frankie had no clue whether or not any of this was getting through to the woman (God, weren't doctors supposed to be smart?). Holly had a completely unreadable expression on her face.

"I think… I'm going to go." Holly said finally, gesturing weakly at the door. "I need to… yeah."

Frankie didn't respond, only watched as Holly walked quickly back into the hall. She pulled out her phone with a small smile, shooting a text to Gail.

* * *

 _Gigantic Bitch: You owe me, Peck._

Gail frowned at her phone as she descended the steps from Oliver's office. She was about to text back asking what the hell Frankie meant, when something collided with her from behind. Hard.

"Holy shit!" She exclaimed, getting thrown into the wall as a white form bounced off her and onto the floor. Holly scrambled back to her feet, redfaced.

"God, I'm so sorry Gail." She stammered, fixing her glasses. "I was looking in Oliver's office for you and I guess I was going too fast, because I didn't see you there at all, and…"

"Lunchbox." Gail cut her off. "It's fine… just watch where you're going next time, eh?"

Sheepishly, Holly nodded.

"Look…" Gail brushed her bangs out of her face. "Oliver gave me the rest of today off, so can we please just go somewhere? I need to talk to you."

"Okay, yeah." Holly nodded. "We can grab something to eat, or would you rather just head back to your place? Or mine?"

Gail chewed her lip. "Yours would be better, if that's okay." She admitted. "Mine smells like boys." The truth was that she really needed a drink that didn't involve being in public, and if they were at Holly's then Gail always had the option of leaving.

Holly smiled. "Yeah, that's fine. Do you need a ride?"

Gail nodded, and together they left for the parking lot. The ride to Holly's was quiet, not terribly awkward but enough that Gail felt the tension building in her head – giving her a wicked headache. But that could also just be the stress of the day, piling up.

When they finally got inside Holly's house, Gail made a beeline for the kitchen.

"Here, Gail." Holly passed her a bottle of bourbon. Gail smiled a little at the memory, grabbing glasses and pouring them both a double.

By unspoken agreement, they sat beside eachother on the couch. Both of them stared at their glasses, until Holly shifted and cleared her throat.

"Gail, I'm sorry for overreacting."

Gail sighed. "I'm sorry, too. I should have been more… I don't know, open about it."

Holly shook her head quickly. "No Gail, don't be sorry." She insisted. "It was totally unfair for me to react like that. I just… it was a surprise, that's all."

Gail stared morosely at her bourbon. "She didn't mean anything to me, Holly." She said finally. "It made me feel like absolute shit afterwards."

"I know." Holly responded softly. "Frankie talked to me about it."

"God, Frankie." Gail groaned. That explained the text. "I don't even know why I ever thought it would be a good idea."

"Because I left you." Holly said simply. "I left, and the world blew up in your face." She fingered the rim of her glass. "I'm so sorry that I wasn't there for you."

Gail fought with her next question, half wanting to blurt it out and half terrified of what the answer would be. "Was there…" she swallowed dryly. "Was there anyone else? For you I mean."

Holly paused. "No. I was too much of a wreck." She smiled sheepishly. "I used to just come home after work, drink two glasses of wine and binge watch Netflix all night. I barely even saw the city while I was there."

While relieved, it just made Gail feel more guilty. But Holly had said that it was okay, right?

"Are we okay Holly?" She had to hear her say it.

Holly touched her shoulder, prompting Gail to look at her. Holly leaned in, pressing the lightest kiss on her lips before pulling away and smiling that crooked smile at her. "Yes Gail, we're okay." Holly murmured.

"Well, that's good then." Gail breathed. "Because otherwise that would have been very awkward."

Holly hummed, still smiling. But as Gail watched, the expression on her face faded until it became closer to something like fear and she looked away. The warmth in her chest that the kiss had left behind gave way to weariness, as Gail understood what was probably going through her brain.

"You're figuring it out, aren't you." Gail sighed. It was just as well, really. She was planning on telling Holly anyways.

Holly turned slowly to look at her. "Oh Gail." Her hand flew up to cover her mouth. "The officer that was kidnapped… that's why it has to be you, isn't it?"

"Yes." Gail exhaled heavily. "It's… not something I generally talk about. Tends to be a mood killer." Gail tried to joke, but her voice was too broken for it to sound even remotely funny.

Holly stared forwards, pressing her lips tightly together. Gail knew she was likely going over the details in her mind, from the files Frankie had given her earlier. "I had thought… God, when you walked into the room I think I knew." She said softly. "But I didn't want to consider it as a possibility. But with Oliver's reaction and Frankie refusing to tell me what was going on…" she shook her head tightly.

"Hey." Gail touched her arm. "It was a long time ago. I'm okay, Holly."

"But you want to go back out there?" Holly exclaimed. "Go back, and talk to him? Jesus, Gail!"

"He needs to see that I am not afraid of him." Gail said firmly. "The only thing that I'm afraid of is him seeing me as weak, because if he does then this crap is just going to keep happening."

She knew she was lying. As long as Perik was alive, he was never going to stop being obsessed with _the one who got away._ But that didn't mean that she wanted to (or was even able to) stand idly by and watch it happen to other people.

Holly was quiet. "So what are you going to do now?" she asked finally.

Gail chewed her lip. "I'll just… keep going I guess. Tomorrow I'll get up, go to work, and go out on the street. Because that's the only thing that I know how to do."

"Then tonight, you're staying here." Holly nodded. "We'll watch a few movies, have a few drinks, and maybe even order Chinese. But let's put all that stuff aside for now, and just have a normal night. I think we both need a normal night."

"Okay." Gail whispered. She thought of the gun in her bag that Oliver let her take home, and knew that it would be impossible for her to just let things go for now. It would be a long time until she would be able to have a normal night.

* * *

 _Yes, Oliver totally saw Holly run into Gail from his office, and yes, he laughed his ass off._

 _Holly is pretty smart, being able to figure out Gail's involvement. Even if she was in denial about it. But maybe this author is smarter, for giving Holly all the facts in a folder so she wouldn't have to type a conversation about it. Who knows._

 _Thank you for all the awesome reviews. Tell me what you would like to see in this fic, and maybe I'll find a way to include it._


	7. Strength

Predictably, Gail did not sleep well that night.

She had left Holly's around nine, exhausted from the day. Gail was careful to watch her surroundings as she walked to her car while clutching her bag like a lifeline.

On her way home, she drove past her apartment for several blocks before sneaking through a late yellow light and making a few quick turns before looping back around again. Gail couldn't shake the feeling that the headlights behind her had been following her for too long, but called herself a paranoid idiot and wondered if she was finally losing it.

' _It would be justified.'_ She had mused while ascending the steps out front.

Inside was quiet, Dov had apparently retreated to his room for the night and Chris was working a night shift. She was glad that she would be able to sneak off to her room without having to make small talk… or worse, big talk with Dov. Being a detective in training, it was more than likely he was involved in the investigation, and she was completely done with the subject for the day.

As she padded quietly across the living room, bag still slung over her shoulder, her attention was caught by a flat white box on the kitchen table. She lifted the lid to see a dozen doughnuts, the good ones. Her favourites too.

The small gesture hit her surprisingly hard. Gail had to blink back tears before she could see well enough to make it down the hallway to her bedroom. When she finally lay on her bed she thought of Holly, Oliver, and the quiet support from Dov. With these thoughts in mind, she fell asleep quickly.

The warm feeling she had fallen asleep with apparently weren't enough to keep her nightmares at bay, as she woke up around two in the morning. Gail found herself sitting bolt upright in bed, pointing her gun at the door while drenched with sweat. She lowered the gun, breathing slowly to ease the hammering in her chest. It was only then that Gail felt the tears running down her cheeks.

' _Stupid.'_ Gail had berated herself. What if Chris or Dov had opened the door to check on her? After a moment she checked the safety, sighing as she felt it was still on. At least her half-asleep self wasn't smart enough to turn it off. But just in case, she removed the first bullet before reloading and setting the gun back on her night table.

Sleep had eluded her for the rest of the night.

"…Ma'am?" Fox asked, interrupting her thoughts. Gail shook her head slightly, bringing her mind back into the cruiser.

"Sorry, what did you say?"

"I was asking if you wanted to stop for some supper." Curtis said, as he turned onto Jameson.

Gail checked her watch, it was just past six so they still had a couple hours left on shift. "Yeah sure, I could eat." She sighed.

Just then, the radio crackled. _'15-34, we have a 10-33 assault in progress on the waterfront, near Lakeshore and Jameson.'_

Gail picked up the mike. "15-34, mark us 10-8. Less than 2 minutes out." She replied, as Curtis flipped on the warning signals and picked up speed.

' _Copy, 15-34. Be advised, EMS en route.'_

They were waved down as they approached, Fox parking the vehicle at the mouth of one of the walking paths along the waterfront. "Hi sir, what's going on?" Gail asked, circling around the vehicle to grab the first aid bag from the trunk.

"Some guy attacked a girl." The man replied, wringing his hands anxiously. "I was jogging by and I saw him come up from behind her, so I shouted and he ran. I can't wake her up though."

"Okay, take us to her." Curtis instructed, glancing at Gail. They took off briskly down the path, to where another jogger was crouched beside a woman on the ground. Gail approached carefully, rubbing her knuckles against the blonde woman's sternum. She didn't respond, so Gail quickly pressed her fingers on the woman's neck.

"Okay, I've got a pulse." She said to Fox. He nodded, taking a step back to call in an update to dispatch. Both of them heard a strange crunching sound as he stepped.

"What was that?" he asked, quickly moving his foot. Underneath was a small, cracked syringe. Gail pulled a glove on and took out her flashlight. She carefully picked through the plastic to find a larger piece with text on it.

"Midazolam." Curtis read over her shoulder. "What's that?"

"It's a sedative." Gail snapped. "But more importantly, it's evidence and you just trampled all over it."

Curtis stammered an apology, and Gail sighed. "Forget about it. It's dark and it's hard to see." Behind him, she saw the flashing lights as the ambulance pulled up. "Go bring in EMS."

Fox trotted off quickly, and Gail turned her attention back to the woman. She checked her pulse again, making sure that she was still breathing. Satisfied, Gail shined her flashlight slowly on the ground around them to look for anything else that may have dropped.

Her attention was caught by a small black case a few metres away. Gail waited until the medics arrived before getting up and gesturing for Fox to follow her.

She picked it up, unzipping the small case. Inside was another prefilled syringe of Midazolam, as well as several small glass ampules tucked into elastic banding. Gail carefully pulled one out.

"Ketamine." She breathed, the sick feeling back in her stomach. Gail turned her head in time to watch the paramedics lift the blonde woman carefully onto their stretcher.

"Officer Peck, are you okay?" Curtis asked carefully. Gail ignored him, reaching into her pocket for her phone.

"Yeah, Frankie? There's been another one."

* * *

"Okay, let's run through this again." Luke said, pinching the bridge of his nose.

Frankie sighed. "Okay, we have two vics. One dead, one currently unconscious." She said, gesturing to the whiteboard. "Both are in their early thirties, blonde, and found with drugs in their system. The first, Megan Weiler, was found with ketamine and ACP in her system. The second, Sara Vanderlee, was found with a mix of ketamine and midazolam, but ACP was recovered at the scene. One worked in a café, the other was doing her Masters at UofT. One was a Toronto native, the other from St. Catharines. So far we have nothing tying the two together."

"Could be random." Luke mused. "Both liked to jog, so our copycat sets up in a quiet area at night close to a major road, and waits for someone to come along."

"Eyewitnesses didn't see where he went, and traffic cams are useless in a dark area like that. The guy was wearing a hood, so we are waiting for Vanderlee to wake up for a description." Frankie continued, frowning.

Dov hung up the phone. "Guys, I might have something." He announced. "The drug pouch that Gail found on scene matches the pouches used by Toronto EMS. Advanced Care Medics only carry morphine and midazolam, but they keep midaz in prefilled syringes as well as the normal ampules. TEMS says that a pouch went missing last week at Toronto General, when a medic left his duty belt in their charting room to go to the bathroom."

"So, we could be looking at a paramedic?" Luke asked.

"Not necessarily." Dov shrugged. "Any person could have walked in and taken it, and there are no cameras in the back hallway where the room is."

"Hospitals use ketamine though right?" Frankie said. "Call Toronto General, see if any have gone missing."

"I already did." Dov replied. "They said that they do their best to track restricted medicine usage, but sometimes when it gets crazy in there the drugs are grabbed quickly without signing them out. They're looking into it now."

"Okay." Luke sighed. "Get a list of everyone who was working that night, and run them for priors. Look for anyone with assault, or drug charges. The guy probably sold the morphine, or used it himself."

Dov nodded, picking up the phone again.

"It's going to be a big list." Frankie warned.

"I know." Luke frowned. "But it's all we have so far, and that's if our guy even works there. It's not hard for a patient to wander around either."

"What about the ACP though?" Frankie turned to stare at the picture on the board of the pouch. She peered closely, and tapped it with a finger. "Look here, there's only one ampule of it and it's expired by six months."

"Hence why he was going after the midazolam." Luke mused. "So whatever the source was, it's dried up."

"The only places that even use ACP anymore are veterinary clinics. But there are too many to call, and there's no way of telling when the drug was taken either." Frankie finished with a groan. There were too many dead ends in this case and it was starting to give her a headache.

Luke's phone rang. He took the call, having a short conversation while Frankie continued to stare at the board, hoping that an answer would reveal itself. She avoided the end with Perik, and the picture of Gail.

"Okay, that was Peck's rookie." Luke said as he ended the call. "Sara Vanderlee woke up, and was able to give a description. It's not much, but we are looking for a male who's roughly six foot, dark beard, and with a large black eye on the right side."

"Black eye… from Megan probably." Frankie silently congratulated the girl again. "So let's call the General again, and find out with any employees showed up to work with a black eye. Or if there's been any patients with one over the past five days."

Luke rubbed his forehead. "This is going to be an even bigger list, with even more dead ends." He said, frustrated. "In the morning I'm calling Millbourne, and scheduling a sit down with Perik."

"I thought he would only talk to Peck?" Frankie frowned.

"At this point we're out of options, and we need more clues before this guy grabs someone else." Luke replied. "Maybe I'll be able to squeeze something out of him."

The look on his face told Frankie that he wasn't convinced.

* * *

Gail walked into the division the next morning, surly from the lack of sleep and lack of involvement in the case. She had insisted on going to the hospital with the second victim, because she knew exactly how the girl would be feeling when she woke up.

Scared. With thick, dulled senses and a pounding headache that made it hard to breathe, let alone think.

Her attention was caught by raised voices, she could see Luke having an angry discussion with Oliver in his office. Gail approached Dov, who was pouring coffee for himself at the cart.

"What happened." It wasn't a question.

"Yeah, I can't say anything." Dov replied flatly, pouring sugar into his cup.

"Dammit Dov, I just spent all day at the hospital with that girl yesterday." Gail retorted angrily. "She might as well have been me. Clearly the case is not going well, and that maniac is still out there, so would you please just tell me what happened to make Luke lose it?"

Dov stared at her for a moment, before sighing. "Okay. Luke went to talk to Perik."

"And?" Gail prompted.

"And he refused to even leave his cell."

"Because he will only talk to me…" Gail nodded slowly. She knew it would come to this. Gail set her shoulders, turning towards the office. Dov caught her arm.

"Gail, you don't need to do this." Dov hissed. "Perik is a freak, he just wants the attention. You'll be giving him exactly what he wants."

Gail jerked her arm away. "Yes, I have to do this." She replied angrily. "Because I'm the only one who can." Without waiting for his response, she climbed the steps to the office and opened the door without bothering to knock.

"Gail, you need to leave." Oliver commanded.

Gail ignored him, turning to Luke. "Can you give us a minute, please?" she asked softly. Luke looked at her flatly for a moment, before nodding and doing as she asked.

Oliver rubbed his forehead. "I know why you're here, and this isn't up for discussion."

"You said that you were lucky that Ford was dead." Gail started, keeping her voice from shaking. "He's dead and he can't hurt anyone anymore. But what if he wasn't?"

"Gail…" Oliver began, but she spoke over him.

"What if he wasn't, and he was sending someone to do his dirty work for him. What if they started going after more cops. Or worse, Izzy?" she said harshly, trying not to see his flinch.

"Right now Perik has someone out there, hunting random girls because they happen to look like me. And I'm a cop. I'm supposed to protect the public, but here I am hiding away because it's hard." Gail pulled out her badge. "How can I wear this thing and not do anything about this? When I'm the only one who can?"

"I can appreciate that, but…" Oliver nodded, but Gail cut him off again.

"What if Ford started locking people in trunks and beating the shit out of them just because they looked like you? And you have to stand by and let it happen because someone else decided that you weren't strong enough to help."

Gail fought the urge to start yelling, taking a breath to calm herself. "Right now, you are making that decision for me. And girls are going missing, ending up drugged _just like me_ , or worse – raped and killed, because I'm apparently not strong enough to talk to one pathetic little man chained to a table."

Gail threw her badge at Oliver. "Well if that's the case then how the hell can I be a cop, if I'm that much of a pathetic coward?" She stopped, worked up and breathing hard.

Oliver stared at the badge that had bounced off his chest to land on the table. They both stood there for several moments, Gail staring hard at Oliver, who refused to look anywhere but his desk.

"You know… I ought to take you up on that." He said slowly, his voice dangerously low. "Because it'd be a hell of a lot better." Oliver looked at Gail then, his face unreadable. "Your parents are idiots, you know that? You're a better cop than any of them." He sighed, picking up her badge and tossing it back at her. Stunned, Gail only caught it out of reflex.

"Go then." Oliver said, making the shooing motion. "Afterwards, you're done for the next couple of days. I don't want to see you here… I'll make sure you're kept updated."

Gail wasn't sure what she was flooded more with at that moment: gratitude or dread. "Thank you." She said softly, before leaving.

She went immediately to the woman's changeroom, changing into the clean uniform that was hanging in her locker. Gail took extra care in tucking in the shirt, smoothing the folds before velcroing her vest snugly in place. She moved to the mirror, to fix her hair and freshen her makeup.

Satisfied that her armour was in place, Gail strode to the office at the end of the hall. "Callaghan, we're on. I'll meet you there." She said briskly. Gail watched Luke and Frankie exchange a look, but left before they could respond.

Next, Gail poked her head into the break room. "Fox. Let's go for a drive."

"Yes, ma'am." Fox said, scrambling to his feet to follow her.

* * *

 _Next: Perik._

 _Updates will be a little more delayed now, probably once a week. Life, and stuff._


	8. Smile

"Get onto highway 27, past Woodbine." Gail instructed once Fox had buckled in.

He nodded, starting the engine.

As they got on the Gardiner and sat in traffic for a while, he began to do the thing where he was sneaking glances at her. It meant he was going to start talking.

"Curtis." She sighed.

"Yes ma'am?" His tone was wary, probably put off by the way she'd been snapping at him lately.

Gail stared out the window. "Right now the D's are in the middle of a big case… one that I've had to deal with before. In the past… well, the details don't matter, but it ended with an officer being held captive and a detective killed." Her voice trailed off slightly and she cleared it, before continuing on.

"So my point is that this is a very difficult case for me. Which is why I've been more of a bitch to you than usual, and it's entirely possible that I'm going to get worse. But I want you to know that it has nothing to do with anything that you do…" she looked at him and shrugged. "Unless of course you do screw up, then yes it is your fault."

Curtis chuckled slightly, before staring straight ahead at the traffic that wasn't moving. "I understand… Gail." The fact that this was the first time he'd used her first name didn't escape her.

"Whatever." She huffed. "Just… please don't talk for the rest of the drive. And especially the way back, okay?"

He agreed, and she went back to staring out the window.

* * *

They strode down the hallway, to the interrogation room that was starting to get more familiar than she'd prefer. Gail threw her arm out in front of Curtis before he could open the door.

"Fox, I need you to say here." She ordered. "Regardless of what you might hear, you are not allowed to enter that room. Got it?"

The look in his eyes told her that he wanted to argue, but her tone gave him no option.

"Yes, ma'am."

"And keep anyone else out of there." She added as an afterthought. "Prison warden is okay, but absolutely no other cops or detectives… or anyone else. My orders, got it?"

He nodded solemnly, and she straightened her shoulders before opening the door. Luke had apparently beat them there, as he was waiting for her in the room.

"Officer Peck." He greeted, his expression grave.

Gail didn't respond, turning instead to watch as Perik was brought in and cuffed to the table. She took the moment to breathe slowly, calming the flight response that his presence invoked and to get used to the sight of him again.

He looked terrible, even more haggard and scruffy than last time. She was glad.

After a few moments Luke spoke again. "Are you ready?" he asked softly.

"Yes." Her voice was steady, in contrast to the anxiety she felt clawing inside.

"You've done this before. You know that he's going to play games with you. Don't let it throw you."

"I know. I'm ready." She responded.

Luke gave her a searching look. "Okay then. Let's go." He said firmly, reaching up to open the door.

The buzzer sounded, and Gail stepped into the room.

* * *

"Hello, Gail. It's nice to see you again." Perik smiled.

Gail fought the revulsion that attempted to bubble up at the sound of his voice, keeping her armour in check and her face in her best deadpan glare.

"I wish I could say the same." She sighed, pulling out the metal chair in front of him to sit down. She placed the folder between them on the table.

He gestured towards the folder, as much as the cuffs would allow. "So is this where you tell me a story about how someone is going around, trying to kidnap girls, and that you need my help?" Perik asked, his voice dripping with faux innocence.

"That depends." Gail raised a brow. "If you tell me what you know, then I guess I won't have to say it, will I?"

Perik chuckled, the cuffs clinking slightly as he shifted in his seat. "After all this time, you are as adorable as ever." He smiled. "I'll admit, there is someone. But you know that I won't share my secrets that easily."

Gail tilted her head slightly. "Oh, I know that. You love your little games, spouting your nonsense to try and get a reaction from me. What would you like to know this time, Ross?" she asked. "You already know about my past crimes, or are you actually interested in hearing about the parking ticket I received a week ago?"

Perik was quiet, his eyes boring into hers while that obnoxious smile still graced his lips. "I think… that you have changed Gail."

"We are all changing, constantly." Gail replied flatly. "The outside world demands it, but I guess you wouldn't know about that from in here."

"I know enough of the outside world to understand that. I like to keep up to date on the subjects that pique my interest." Perik shrugged. He paused, before changing the subject. "I like your hair."

He was trying to throw her off balance. "Why don't you tell me how you keep up to date?" she asked lightly.

"The colour, I don't quite care for." Perik continued, ignoring her. "The blonde you had before made you look more striking, bringing out that beautiful shade of blue in your eyes. The cut though, is quite different than earlier."

"I felt like a change." She replied coolly.

He raised his chin slightly. "That's the funny thing though, about haircuts. Especially in women. They go through some big event, and feel the need to chop it all off. Why do you suppose that is?"

"It's just a haircut."

Perik shook his head. "No, I don't think so. I think you are trying to get away from something. To start over… as a new you."

"Tell me his name, Ross." Gail responded quietly, not wanting to play his game.

"Tell me Gail, that boyfriend that you cheated on, were you ever able to make it work?" Perik asked.

"He moved."

"But was that before or after he found out about how disloyal you can be?" he pressed. "Because I feel like that would have come as a shock to him, something so out of character for Gail Peck: loyal cop, loyal girlfriend, loyal _to her family_. Everything that you are supposed to be."

He hit a nerve, and he knew it. "Ah…" he breathed, straightening slightly. "Your shadow self is back again, Gail."

"I think you've been spending too much time alone." She retorted. She needed to find a way to steer things back on track. "What is his name, Ross."

"Perhaps. But that's what happens when you spend too much time alone… especially locked up in here." He shrugged. "You spend a lot of time thinking about the one who sent you here."

"Get to the point."

"Steven Peck?" he raised his eyebrows.

 _'How the fuck does he know about him?'_ Gail fought to not react.

Perik's grin grew wider. "You landed him here, just down the other hallway. You betrayed your entire family. I wonder how he feels about that?"

Gail pulled the autopsy photo of Megan Weiler out of the folder, placing it in front of him. Perik didn't even look down, continuing his rant before she could speak.

"Yes, in prison you think a lot about the person who sent you there. But I'm sure it works both ways, doesn't it? You think of him, just as you think of me!" He was beginning to get quite agitated, shifting around in his seat.

"If I tell you that yes, I think of you, will you tell me his name? Because I do, quite often." Gail kept her voice calm in contrast to Perik's near yelling. She felt ashamed of her confession, but it was necessary to get what she needed.

"Who is doing this?" she persisted, tapping the photo of the bruised and broken girl in front of him.

Perik suddenly paused. "That was the truth." He breathed. "I knew it. You haven't forgotten me."

"A name, Perik! I gave you a secret, now give me yours." She demanded harshly.

"That's good, that's very good." He muttered, before giving Gail the most haunting smile she'd ever received. "Because in your last moments, I know you will think of me. Guard!" he shouted suddenly, making her jump slightly. "Please bring me back to my cell, I'm done here."

"You haven't held up your end of the deal." Gail argued.

"Oh you will know who he is soon, I promise Gail." Perik said, that deranged smile still on his face.

The door beside them opened, and Gail could hear Luke's voice arguing with someone in the hall.

"Goodbye, Gail." Perik said softly. "Thank you for the lovely visit."

The guard uncuffed him, leading him out of the room. Perik stared at her the entire time, still smiling.

Gail could only sit, stunned.

* * *

Luke sat her down in the chair of the observation room, pushing a bottle of water at her. She ignored it, running a hand through her hair. "He played me like a fiddle." She breathed, guilt churning inside her. After all that, she still got nothing.

"He played all of us, this entire time." Luke shrugged. "Because that's what he does. But you did well in there, Gail. It was incredibly brave of you to face him again."

"How the hell does he know about Steve?" Gail groaned, pressing a palm to her forehead.

"Word spreads quickly in here. The story of a detective being imprisoned would be a popular rumour."

Gail shook her head. "He knew all about me testifying against him. Inmates wouldn't care about that, and Perik has restrictions to all media. He has to have an outside man."

Luke was quiet. "You're right." He admitted. "But the bigger concern was him threatening you. I'd like to place a detail on you."

"Absolutely not." Gail argued. "He was just trying to scare me, that's exactly what he wants."

"It's not safe."

She fixed him with a flat stare. "I'm carrying a gun. Oliver gave permission."

Luke sighed, rapping his knuckles on the metal table. "Fine. But no going anywhere alone. And keep your eyes open, got it? If you even get the feeling that something might be wrong, call it in."

She nodded. "Can I please go now?" Her voice broke slightly at the end, and to her dismay Luke's expression softened. She couldn't do pity, not right now.

"I'll walk you out." He said softly.

* * *

As they drove out of the parking lot, they could suddenly hear the sound of a klaxon coming from the imposing building.

"What is that?" Curtis asked nervously.

"Just a lockdown." Gail sighed. "Millbourne is unstable even on a good day. Just keep driving."

The thought crossed her mind that the timing of the lockdown was strange, but Gail discounted it. She just wanted to get home.

* * *

 _If Perik seemed more unhinged than usual, there may be a reason for it._

 _Thank you for your lovely reviews, I really enjoy reading all your thoughts and opinions._


	9. A Dark Hole

Gail stuffed her uniform in her locker, glad to be finished with the day. She still felt shaken, and disappointed with her performance in the interrogation room. After everything, she didn't even manage to squeeze a name out of the man.

The image of his smile popped into her mind, and Gail hit the locker with her fist to try and quell the rage she felt inside. _'God, what a complete failure.'_ She thought despairingly.

"Gail." Oliver's voice sounded behind her.

"This is the woman's changeroom, Shaw." She sighed, without turning around.

Oliver cleared his throat. "Yeah, I know that. Anyways, I need to speak with you."

The anger hadn't quite abated by this point, and some of it displaced towards him. "I was just leaving." She said through gritted teeth, turning to face him. "I thought you didn't want to see me afterwards."

To her surprise Oliver didn't flinch, and she finally registered the look on his face. Cautiously blank, the same look she'd seen a hundred times before. Something had happened.

"What is it?"

Oliver gestured towards the door. "Just come with me to my office, Gail."

Perturbed, she followed him down the hall. As they approached, she spotted Traci and Frankie waiting for them. Frankie looked frustrated, Traci just confused.

A horrible thought struck her, and Gail stopped at the threshold of the room. "What happened?" she asked again, looking back and forth between Oliver and Frankie.

Her brain began overanalyzing. If Steve was hurt then Frankie would look more upset, but why else would the three of them be called into Oliver's office? Gail felt sick then, guilt clawing up from the pit of her stomach…

"Perik is dead." Frankie said gently.

' _Oh.'_

Gail felt a rush of relief, her knees weakening under her. Frankie had to step forwards to steady her. "I thought you would be happy, Peck." Frankie said, her expression concerned.

"I thought… Steve." Gail said weakly, sitting herself in the chair beside Traci.

A pregnant pause.

"Clearly I did not think this through." Oliver muttered to himself, his expression guilty. "I didn't mean to scare you."

Gail huffed a laugh, and beside her Traci crossed her arms. "Really Oliver?" Traci chastised. "What else were we supposed to think, you guys pulling us in here?"

"Okay, okay." Frankie said, holding up her palms. "Seriously, our bad. Yes, Steve is fine. But Perik is dead."

"How?" Gail asked simply. Her mind wasn't capable of asking anything more complex at that point.

"Guards found him curled up on his bed shortly after he was returned to his cell." Frankie frowned. "He slit his wrists with a razor, and bled out before anyone noticed the blood."

Traci exhaled heavily beside her. "Well, that's over at least." She muttered.

"His copy cat is still out there, and I just blew our last chance at getting a name." Gail said bitterly, pressing a palm to her forehead. "What part of this sounds even remotely over to you?"

"Gail, Luke gave me the rundown." Frankie interjected. "He told me Perik never had any intention on telling you anything. He just wanted to scare you…" She crossed her arms. "I don't know, maybe all this was just to have one last chance of talking to you." Her tone indicated that she wasn't convinced.

"Like things are ever that easy." Gail muttered darkly. "So what now?"

Frankie sighed. "The body's on its way to our morgue, escorted by Luke. Now we see if the autopsy will give us anything."

Our morgue. "You can't be serious." Gail protested. She felt sick at the idea of Holly being in the same room as him, dead or otherwise.

"Gail, it's an open investigation." Oliver soothed. "Dr. Stewart is the best, and it's our best shot at getting this guy."

The day was getting too long. Gail felt anxiety beginning to claw at her, the room starting to feel stuffy and too hot. "I need some air." She said weakly, getting up from the chair. No one moved to stop her as she pushed the door open and left the office.

* * *

As she moved down the hallway, her phone began vibrating against her leg. Gail pulled it out of her pocket, answering the call as she entered one of the interrogation rooms to have some privacy.

"Are you okay?"

Gail paused for a moment, allowing Holly's voice to wash over her and ease some of the pain in her chest.

"God, no. Not at all." She replied, her voice sounding strangled. Her breath stuttered slightly, and she realized her face was wet. She was crying.

"Oh honey." Holly sighed in her ear. "Luke called me, he mentioned the interrogation. You are so incredibly brave, you know that?"

"Not really." Gail managed. "I'm a total wreck right now."

"That's okay. Anyone would be." Holly soothed. "Honey, I'd give this to Rodney if I could, but I have to do the autopsy. But I'll text as soon as I'm done, and you can come over, okay?"

"Okay."

Some noises sounded in the background. "Gail, I have to go. Luke's here." Holly said quickly. "Please tell me you have someone to stay with until then, I don't want you being alone."

"Yeah, I do." Gail lied, sniffing as she wiped her face. "I'll be okay, really. Thanks Holly."

"Okay good. I have to go now. I'll see you soon, okay?"

"Okay, thanks. Bye." Gail responded, listening until she heard the click of Holly hanging up. She stayed in the dark room to gather herself, not quite ready to go out and face the others yet.

There was a hesitant knock at the door, and Tracy poked her head in. "Hey." She said uncertainly. "Oliver said you might be in here."

Gail wiped her face quickly with the heel of her palm. "What do you want?" she sighed.

Tracy allowed the door to close behind her. "Well," she began, leaning against the wall. "I know that if I need a drink right now, you definitely do." Her face softened. "I haven't been a very good friend lately. I was wondering if you would give me the chance to change that."

Gail was struck by the memory of Traci coming to visit her in the hospital. When Traci had asked her to be a friend, reaching out to a Gail who was broken and hurting. Traci was the only person who could possibly understand how she was feeling, because at that moment it was the same as before. Gail was broken, and hurting. And despite all the crap that the world had thrown at them, here Traci was. Again.

"I'd like that." Gail whispered. Traci gave her a small smile.

* * *

"Red okay?" Traci asked, pulling a bottle out of her cabinet.

"Yeah, that's fine." Gail replied, from where she sat on the couch with her legs curled under her. "Thanks."

Traci poured the wine, handing her a glass. They both sat there for a minute, neither of them sure of what to say.

"How's Steve?" Traci ventured, after taking a sip.

Guilt stirred within her. "I'm not sure." Gail admitted. "I haven't talked to him in a while."

Traci smiled understandingly. "It's hard." She offered. "I'm still unbelievably angry with him."

Gail chewed her lip, staring at the glass. "I thought he understood that being a cop was about more than just impressing others, or trying to get to the top. Me and him, we were supposed to be more than just the Peckspectation crap our parents pulled on us." She sighed. "I was so wrong. And he wasn't even remotely the brother that I thought he was… Like, he framed Oliver. _Oliver._ "

"Have you talked to him about that?"

Gail shook her head. "No, just about the trial. I couldn't talk to him without wanting to cry or hit him or something… so I didn't. Then the fallout began hitting me at work, and my parents stopped talking to me, I just didn't want to try anymore. He stopped being my family the moment I heard him spill everything to Andy."

"I'm sorry." Traci said softly. "At first, I thought that I could put everything aside and we could still be us. But then I watched as you cozied up to the D's and Oliver, helping with parade in the mornings, and for some reason I just starting assuming you were the same."

"Oliver made me do all that stuff." Gail said, incredulously. "I would have gladly just curled up in a hole somewhere, or handed out speeding tickets for the rest of my life. But he wouldn't let me." She was hurt that Traci would even remotely group her into the same category as Steve. "Like, have you seen my rookie? That kid doesn't even need a T.O. Oliver only stuck him with me to give me something to do at work."

"I know." Traci replied miserably. "It doesn't make sense. But I was trying to get over Steve and it was just easier to push away anything that reminded me of him."

That at least she could understand. "You pulled a Gail." She said softly. "It might seem easier, but trust me Trace. Pushing everybody away just makes you miserable and emotionally stunted."

"You're not emotionally stunted." Traci objected. "You think you are, but you feel more than most of the people I know. That's why you're such good police."

"Everyone keeps saying that. But I'm just trying to make up for all the crap that I've screwed up. I'm still a cop so I can make up for how shitty my family is. I'm dealing with this Perik crap so I can make up for Jerry."

"Gail…" Traci sighed, but Gail continued.

"Seriously Trace. If I sit back and let Perik have his way, then what was even the point of all this? Jerry should have just let him kill me." Gail finished bitterly.

"Don't say that. Don't ever say that." Traci shook her head. "I told you, none of it was your fault."

"It was though." Gail closed her eyes for a moment, her mother's voice ringing through her head. Saying that if she had been better police, she might not have gotten a detective killed. "I should have checked before opening the door."

"Where are you even getting this from?" Traci exclaimed. "Gail, that shit could have happened to anyone. And you survived, and you've faced down that monster twice now. God Gail, why can't you see how incredible you are?"

"I don't know." Gail whispered. "People keep saying that to me, but then I screw up more, or they leave. That's just how it is, I guess."

Guilt flashed across Traci's face again. "I'm sorry that I was being so selfish. But I'm here now, and I'm still your friend Gail." She paused for a moment. "And I get the sense Holly is here to stay as well."

God. Holly. "Traci, right now Holly is doing an autopsy on the man that she knows drugged and kidnapped her ex-girlfriend. She's read the file on Perik. I'll be shocked if she doesn't take off running after this."

Traci shook her head. "No… I think all of this is just going to make her see just how strong you really are. And she's going to be even more sorry that she left in the first place."

Gail took her first sip of the wine, mostly just to buy time before having to respond.

"I hope you're right, Trace." She said finally. "Because I'm scared shitless that you're not."

* * *

Gail gave a small wave as Traci drove away, dropping her off at the frathouse. The last hour or so had been filled with light conversation, like catching up on how Leo was doing and how much Gail hated Chloe.

"Are you sure you're going to be okay?" Traci had asked, as she drove Gail back to her place. "You can stay with me until Holly's done, I just need to finish some paperwork back at the station."

"No, I can't be there right now." Gail said. "I need a break from people… and Chris should be home. I won't be alone."

Traci had looked concerned, but let it go after reminding Gail to be careful.

Gail unlocked the door to the apartment, noting how quiet it was inside. "Chris, are you home?" she called. His truck keys were still on the hook.

No response. It was strange, given that he had worked a night shift the night before. But she figured that he had been asked to stay late.

Gail turned on the TV, turning to the shopping channel to fill the apartment with some mind numbing distraction. It was better than the noise in her head.

She fiddled with her phone while chewing halfheartedly on one of the doughnuts Dov had bought. She really wasn't hungry, but also hadn't eaten all day and she hoped it would quell the anxious nausea she felt.

Gail really wished that someone was home. Anyone. She'd even take Chloe.

She jumped when her phone buzzed suddenly with a text. Gail chastised herself silently for being so high strung.

 _Lunchbox: Hey, I'm done and Rodney's closing for me. Where are you?_

Oh thank god. Gail texted a response immediately.

 _Gail: At home. I'll meet you at yours?_

 _Lunchbox: Sounds good, see you then._

Gail eyed Chris's keys on the hook, deciding that he wouldn't mind. She grabbed her bag, and headed out to the truck. She sent a quick text to Chris as she left, letting him know that she borrowed the truck. He didn't respond, and she tucked her phone in her jacket pocket.

* * *

When she pulled up at Holly's building, there was no parking left in the tiny lot. Gail circled around, taking an empty spot on the street about half a block away. She slung her bag over her shoulder, stepping onto the sidewalk after locking the truck.

The anxious feeling in her stomach had gotten worse. Gail discounted it as a result of the day, just the stress piling up. But she still felt uneasy as she walked by a few cars and a silver minivan that were parked on the street.

Her suspicions were confirmed when she heard the distinctive noise of the side panel of a van opening, and fast footsteps behind her.

Gail was fast, actually getting the gun out of her bag and squeezing the trigger at the dark form before it reached her.

Instead of going off, the trigger squeezed too easily and the gun clicked. Gail belatedly remembered removing the first bullet, swearing silently.

Her finger pumped the trigger again, but by then the man was too close. He pushed Gail's arm upwards, the bullet firing uselessly into the air. He slammed her into a parked car hard enough for her to lose her grip on the weapon, pinning her front against the vehicle. One of his hands covered her mouth roughly, and she felt a sharp pinch on the side of her leg.

' _No, no, no…'_ her inner voice chanted uselessly, as Gail flailed her arms and legs, trying desperately to free herself. None of her hits were at an angle good enough to hurt him, as he was hugging her tightly against his body from behind. The movement caused the man's hood to fall back, revealing dark hair and a yellowing black eye. She bit the hand against her mouth, making the man yelp and hit her hard in the side.

' _That should have hurt.'_ Gail thought dimly. But she felt no pain, the strength falling out of her limbs and she could no longer feel the ground beneath her feet.

The fear she had been feeling faded away, leaving nothing but a giddy calm that she should have been scared of, but wasn't.

Her vision blurred before darkening, and the last thing she saw before falling into a dark hole was the smile on Ross Perik's face.

* * *

 _Author's note:_

 _I'm sorry._

 _Just kidding, I'm totally not._


	10. Panic

**Author's note: Please note the precautionary change in rating.**

* * *

Dov sighed as he poured himself another cup of coffee. It had been a long day of reviewing Perik's tapes, and reading reports of his interactions with other inmates. So far their search had turned up nothing, but they still had a few more months to sort through.

Chris came up beside him, grabbing a cup for himself.

"You know, you could go home." Dov suggested, seeing the dark circles under his eyes. "Didn't you just finish a night shift?"

"Yeah, but I don't think I could sleep." Chris yawned. "That freak's still out there. I might not be able to do much for Gail… but I can at least help with the investigation."

They were quiet for a moment, both of them fixing their coffee. Two officers walked by them, their radios crackling with a report about a gunshot.

"That's not too far from here." Dov frowned.

Chris shrugged. "Single gunshot in a suburban neighbourhood? Probably just some kids with firecrackers or something."

They took their coffees back to the office, settling down for another few hours of reviewing. Dov was getting frustrated that every lead had been turning into a dead end, and knew everyone else was feeling much of the same.

"Detectives?" a hesitant voice asked from the doorway. Dov paused the recording, pulling off his headphones.

"Fox, what can we do for you?" Dov asked. He'd only interacted with Gail's rookie a handful of times, but Gail had told him that the kid was good.

"I was wondering if you needed a hand. Since Officer Peck is off…" he asked timidly. "Staff Sergeant Shaw said that it would be okay with him."

"Pick a computer." Frankie grunted tiredly from behind Dov. "Epstein, get him set up with some tapes."

As Dov set Curtis up, his phone rang. He was confused when he read the caller ID.

"Hey Holly, what's up?"

"Hey Dov, do you know if Gail's left your place yet? She's supposed to meet me at my apartment, but she's not here and her phone's off. "

"No idea." Dov frowned. "I thought she was with Traci."

Beside him, Chris gestured for his attention. "Gail texted me like 15 minutes ago, she was borrowing my truck to go to Holly's." he said in a low voice.

A spark of concern ignited in Dov's stomach. "Chris says she took his jeep 15 minutes ago, she should be there by now."

Holly's tone echoed his concern. "Yeah, there's a black jeep like halfway down the block, but no one in it." Through the speaker, Dov could hear an approaching siren.

"Holly, where do you live?" he asked slowly, gesturing at Frankie and Luke for attention.

The address Holly gave matched the street of the gunshot they'd heard in the report. "Dov, _what_ is going on?"

Dov covered the receiver with a palm. "Gail might be missing, and a report of gunfire went out for the address she was supposed to meet Holly at." He said urgently to the detectives.

"Peck was carrying a gun." Luke responded, running a hand through his hair. He swore, banging a fist on the desk. Frankie just looked sick.

"Okay, Holly. I don't know what is going on, but we are going to figure this out, okay? Just stay where you are."

"Dov, a cruiser just pulled up. Don't tell me this has something to do with Gail."

"Guys." Chris interjected, swivelling his screen around to face them. On the monitor was a traffic cam. The video showed the gritty footage of a blonde woman fighting a hooded figure, before being dragged into a grey minivan. When the man's hood fell, they could see a beard and a darkened patch on the right side of his face. A black eye.

Dov swallowed. "Holly, we're on our way. Just stay put." He repeated hoarsely, before hanging up.

Gail was taken.

* * *

A headache was all that Gail knew.

She groaned, keeping her eyes shut as she tried to find enough moisture in her mouth to swallow. Her head felt thick, and heavy.

' _God, how much did I drink?'_ she thought dimly. But she didn't feel hungover. She felt dizzy, shaky, and hot and cold. She could feel her body trembling slightly. It felt familiar, but what was scaring her was just how disconnected she felt.

Disconnected. Like she was…drugged.

Gail's eyes flew open. The room was unfamiliar, small with wooden walls. The bed she was lying on was incredibly uncomfortable.

Her memory came back to her slowly, as her panic built. She had been driving to Holly's… no she had gotten out of her car and was walking. And then… nothing. She couldn't remember.

' _Because in your last moments, I know you will think of me.'_ Perik's voice whispered in her ear.

Gail tried to thrash, her panic fully taking hold. Her limbs weren't responding properly, barely lifting when she told them too. Her chest felt like she was having palpitations.

"Ah, you're awake." A man's voice said. Gail turned her head to see someone walking towards her, his steps echoing loudly on the wooden floor.

"Where… am I?" she managed, her tongue thick and her words slurred.

"Don't you worry about that." The man soothed, standing beside the bed. "You're here, with me Gail. That's all you need to know."

Gail felt sick as she felt the bed dip beside her. She tried to ignore the haziness she felt in order to analyze everything, reverting to her training and paying attention to every word. Details might just save her life.

He knew her name. "You kidnapped a cop. You know that, right?"

The man chuckled. "Oh, I know. But regardless of your day job, you're still just a woman." She flinched as his hand touched her hair. "A beautiful, blonde woman." He murmured.

Her judgment may have been better if she wasn't looped up on drugs, but as it was Gail wasn't able to stop her retort. "You're an idiot. They're going to come for me." She bit out harshly.

The man's face darkened, and he struck her hard in the face. Gail couldn't help crying out, tasting blood from her lip.

"Shut up, bitch." He growled. "Perik was right, you do have a mouth on you."

"What do you want?" Gail asked. Her eyes flitted around her, searching desperately for something, _anything._ Anything that could be used as a weapon. But there was nothing, and her arms were still too heavy to fight back.

Amusement crinkled the man's good eye, the one that wasn't blackened. "You, my dear." He hissed with his salami breath in her face, before hitting her again.

Gail tried to scream, rolling uselessly away from him onto her side. She heard the man laughing as he landed hit after hit on her, the pain burning through the drugs she was on to daze her even more. She felt his hand pull roughly at her shirt as he straddled her, forcing her on her back. The shirt began to tear.

' _No!'_ her mind cried desperately, and she felt tears spring to her eyes. _'Not this, anything but this… please god…'_ Gail managed to bring an arm up between them, but the man batted away her flimsy attempt at self-preservation like it was nothing.

The man had finally ripped her shirt free when a phone rang, making him pause.

"Fuck." She heard him grunt, before roughly tying the shirt around her head to gag her. "Stay here." He ordered.

' _Like hell I will.'_ Gail thought as she heard the man answer the call, stepping outside of the room.

She needed to find a way to bring attention to herself. Since the cell phone was obviously not an option and she wasn't able to run, she needed to find something else.

Her attention was caught by a camera and tripod in the corner, but more importantly the slim black laptop sitting next to it on a small table. It was across the room, but it was probably her only chance. Gail gritted her teeth, forcing her body to roll towards the end of the bed.

It was hard. Her limbs felt like they weighed a million pounds, and her body kept whispering to her that she should relax and rest on the bed for a bit. Gail tried to sit up in order to slip off the end of the bed feet first, but couldn't quite get herself up all the way. After a couple attempts, she settled for just rolling off the bed onto the floor.

She hit the rough floorboards hard, with a loud thump. Chest heaving, Gail listened for any sign of discovery.

"No, I told you Peter. I specifically booked this weekend off." The muffled voice of her captor came through the door. "Isn't there anyone else? I get that Millbourne is a pain to work these days… wait, how long's the shift?"

Satisfied that she hadn't been heard, Gail began the arduous journey crawling across the dirty floor. She had almost made it when she heard the sound of the door open.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" the man shouted. Terrified and unable to fight back, Gail could only curl herself into the fetal position as the man kicked her hard.

"God, what a pain in the ass." He grumbled, his footsteps echoing away from her. "You're lucky Gail. I got called into work for a few hours, so you get to stay here and enjoy the cottage for a bit until I come back."

Gail watched him fiddle with something in the kitchen, before coming back with a syringe in hand. A fresh wave of terror ran though her, but all she could do was scream muffledly through the gag and flail uselessly as the man crouched over her. He swore as one of her hits got him in his bad eye, but kept holding her down hard to stick her with the needle.

"You'll get what's coming to you, bitch." He huffed, grunting as he picked her up, slinging her over his shoulder. He flung her onto the hard mattress, Gail's head barely missing the wooden headboard.

The world was beginning to darken again as he pulled out a length of rope from a bag, and Gail lost consciousness as she felt him tie her wrists tightly above her head.

* * *

"Even with the partial plate from the cam, there's still over 200 grey minivans registered in the GTA alone." Frankie said frustratedly. "And that's if it's even his."

Luke turned away from her to stare at the whiteboard. "Okay." He groaned. "So we're looking for a male, white, six foot, with dark hair, full beard, and a black eye who was driving one of the most common minivans in the last twenty years. We know that he's had enough access in Millbourne to get sedation information from Perik, and to slip him a razor. But he hasn't made an appearance in a single tape or report that we've read, and any guards matching his description have been cleared of priors and have solid alibis. He was also at Toronto Gen. a week ago to steal narcs from EMS, but there's been no patient there that matches his description or injury that we can find. His victims appear to be random, the only constant being blond hair and jogging – likely for convenience for the abduction."

"We know he has little to no medical training." Frankie continued when he paused, leaning her forehead against her palms. "His source of ACP has dried up, likely from a veterinary clinic somewhere in the past year. He leaves no trace at the scenes, and we don't have enough priors to draw experience from for timeframes. If he's like Perik, it's 24 hours. But his first vic had injuries from up to 48 hours before her death."

"What about Perik's autopsy?" Oliver asked, frowning.

Holly sniffed slightly from where she had been sitting with Traci. The doctor had adamantly refused to leave once she arrived at the station, arguing that she would stay out of the way of the investigation while interpreting the forensic evidence as much as possible to help. Being the best FP in the city, Luke had relented and allowed her to stay.

"Nothing physical that I could find." Holly responded, her voice rough. "I'm still waiting on the bloodwork though, Rodney is sending it to me the moment it's done. Probably in an hour."

"And there's nothing really from the scene where Gail was taken, the shot was called in from a neighbour who'd heard it but didn't see anything, and so far there's been no eyewitnesses that've come forwards. Epstein is having Diaz and the others canvassing the area, but all that's turned up is Gail's phone ditched on a sidewalk a block away. Clean of prints." Luke said.

"He would have had a significant amount of freedom to do what he did in Millbourne." Traci frowned. "Just because the warden swears that it's impossible an employee did it, doesn't make it true. Guards are generally the main source of goods flowing in and out of prisons, even if the prisons deny it."

"What are you thinking then?" Frankie asked.

Traci sighed, standing up. "I need to make a call." She muttered, walking out of the room.

* * *

There were two things that would make prison slightly more tolerable, Steve Peck decided as he lay on his cot. One was a reason to live, the other was a visitor. Hell, he'd even settle for a phone call about trivial bullshit. As long as it had nothing to do with his trial.

"Peck! Phone call." The prison's warden interrupted his thoughts.

Steve frowned as he sat up, watching the man gesture impatiently with his cell phone.

"On your phone?"

"Special circumstances." The man replied. What was his name again? Joe, Gerry? Steve couldn't remember. "It's a Detective Nash from 15 Division."

Joe/Gerry flinched slightly when Steve got up quickly to whip the phone out of his hand.

"Traci, hey. Thanks for calling." Steve tried for calm and apologetic, but inside he was bewildered. He wasn't expecting to hear from her anytime in the near future… possibly ever.

"Steve, listen." Traci sounded distressed. "Gail's been taken. We think it's another Perik copycat."

God. Steve took a deep breath through his nose, trying to calm the panic he felt at that statement. At that moment the only thing he could think of was the stricken look on Gail's face when he walked out of that warehouse, and the horrible way she had breathed his name. He never wanted his sister to experience that kind of pain again, she'd dealt with enough already. But now his sister was taken again by some maniac, and he couldn't do jack shit about it.

"When? What do you know?" he asked hoarsely.

"Not a ton." She admitted. "She was taken about two hours ago. We've been following this copycat for about a week, but the guy's like a ghost. We can't trace the drugs, the only picture we have of him is from a cam… Steve we've got nothing. All we know is that he probably works for Millbourne."

"Shit." Steve exhaled. "He's why Perik's dead, isn't he?"

"You heard about that?"

"Word spread fast. People have been freaking out, there's been lockdowns like three times a day. Security's been tightened, and now there's junkies detoxing in every block because their source was cut off."

Traci paused, Steve could picture her pursing her lips slightly as she thought. "We think he stole morphine and midazolam from EMS at Toronto Gen. He could be the source. What do you know?"

"God Traci." Steve groaned. "They all know I'm a cop, I don't know anything. Look… at least give me a description of your guy. So I can at least keep my eyes open."

"White male, six foot with dark hair and a beard. He has a black eye on the right side from a previous vic." Traci recited. "Look Steve, I know you want to help but you have to be careful…"

A distant alarm sounded from one of the other cell blocks, cutting her off. "What's that?" she asked.

"Another lockdown." Steve replied, as the warden told him that he needed his phone back. Steve held up a finger, telling him to wait. "Don't worry about me, Trace. Worry about Gail, you need to find Gail okay? Keep me updated." He said urgently into the phone.

"Now Peck!"

"Trace I got to go. Find her!" he pleaded, the warden finally snatching the phone out of his hand. The man hurried out of the cell, not noticing Steve jamming his shoe in the door moments before it closed. Steve waited until the man's urgent steps faded, before opening it slightly and peering down the hallway.

It was empty, for the moment. But then the alarm in his block began to sound loudly as well, meaning the hall would be filled with guards momentarily. Steve swore, about to close the door shut when he heard footsteps echoing in the other direction.

It was one of the janitorial people, he recognized the blue shirt. But more importantly, he saw the man's dark hair and beard. And the black eye.

Steve couldn't believe it was actually going to be this easy.

* * *

 **Author's Note: I promised you a happy ending, that hasn't changed. I promise.**


	11. Warfarin

"Of the 200 vehicles that matched the partial plate and description, 70 of them are registered to people with priors. Mostly petty stuff… but a few assaults." Dov said as he typed. "And… looks like not a single person on the list has worked at Millbourne or Toronto Gen. in the past six months." He groaned.

Holly stared at the mug of coffee she was holding. So far all the detectives had come up with were dead ends, and with each minute that passed her headache only intensified.

Her watch face caught her eye. It was 9pm, meaning Gail had been missing for almost three hours now. Three hours that Gail could be hurt or killed or tortured, and they were stuck at the station with a lack of leads and with time rapidly running out…

Her phone beeped, interrupting the despairing monologue that had been running through her head. "The lab results are back for Perik's bloodwork." Holly announced, as she skimmed through the report.

One section caught her eye. "Hey Dov, can you get me Perik's medical history?" she asked. Dov riffled though the stack of folders before finding the appropriate one and handing it to her. By now, everyone in the room had stopped what they were doing to watch her, but Holly took no notice.

"Huh." She breathed as she read over the documentation.

"What?" Frankie asked frustratedly.

Holly laid the paperwork on the table. "Perik's blood showed a high concentration of Warfarin. But he has no medical history of cardiac or clotting issues that would require him to be on a blood thinner."

"Warfarin…" Chris said thoughtfully. "Isn't that a type of rat poison?"

Frankie turned her head slowly to Luke. "Does Millbourne have a rat problem?"

Luke straightened suddenly. "Epstein, do we have a list of janitorial employees?" he demanded.

Dov scanned the folder eagerly. "No… looks like Millbourne hires a third party company for that." He said, frowning. He turned to face the computer and spoke as he typed. "The contract was given to MedClean, a company that specializes in hospital janitorial. But they also have the contract for Millbourne and other prisons in the GTA… and several other medical facilities like nursing homes and laboratories."

"What about veterinary?" Luke asked.

"Several, all within the area." Dov responded excitedly.

Holly felt breathless as she watched the exchange. For the first time they finally might have a concrete lead. The Millbourne list of employees had mentioned nothing about janitorial, and all the detectives had been focused on the guards instead of noticing the gaping hole in the list. A perfect storm… but none of it to Gail's benefit.

"That's got to be it." Frankie stood up, pacing slightly. "Think about it. No one ever pays attention to janitors. They go everywhere in the hospital, and it would be too easy to sneak goods in and out of prisons with their regular supplies."

Luke picked up the receiver of his phone. "Okay, Epstein you call the company for an employee list and records. I'll start on a warrant in case they don't cooperate."

Dov nodded.

Holly turned to Traci in relief. "When they find her, I'm coming." She said in a low voice.

"I'll see what I can do." The detective promised.

* * *

"I don't know what's going on out there man, but you better get in here until the guards show up." Steve hissed at the man. He purposely channeled a Canadiana accent, hoping to sound a little more room temperature in intelligence.

The man looked back and forth up the hall nervously. "Man, I hate this place." He grumbled. "First we get babysitters for every step we take, and the one time they leave me alone is the time that I'm going to get shanked." He paused as sounds of shouting got louder from the direction of the other cell block, and eyed Steve. "Why would you help me?"

"I'm no killer, man." Steve soothed. "All I did was listen to the wrong people… but the other guys down there? Those are the ones you should be scared of."

As the commotion got louder, the man groaned. "Get on the other side of the room." He ordered, approaching the doorway. Steve obediently shuffled to the bed, sitting crosslegged against the wall. Having apparently gained his trust, the man closed the door behind him.

The sound of someone running down the hall echoed loudly shortly after.

"What's your name?" Steve asked, once the footsteps faded.

"Justin Coin." He grunted.

"Oliver Shaw." Steve nodded in response, saying first name that came to mind. "You're a janitor, eh?"

"I'm supposed to be on vacation." Justin grumbled. "They called me in until the night shift shows up in a few hours."

"Sucks man." Steve said sympathetically. Internally, he wanted to wring the guy's neck until he told him what he wanted to know. There was a chance that his appearance was a coincidence, but Steve didn't believe in coincidences. "Who'd you piss off?" he asked, gesturing to his black eye.

Coin gingerly pressed his hand to his eye. "Women, man. They can get you when you least expect it."

Hatred bubbled eagerly in his gut, but Steve took a calming breath. "Damn." He whistled lowly. "Was she at least hot?"

"Gorgeous, little blonde thing." Coin grinned. "I've got another waiting for me once I get off shift. She's a real spitfire, that one."

Gail, it had to be. But he needed to know where he was keeping her before Steve could kick his ass. "You and blondie have anything special planned? For your vacation?"

"I got a cabin." Coin shrugged. "It's quiet this late in the year."

"That's got to be far from here." Steve remarked. "You drove all the way back here for a few hours?"

"Actually it's only a half hour from here. North Toronto KOA… Just before Barrie."

Steve heard footsteps coming up the hall, and took his chance. He lunged across the room, catching Coin by surprise and easily straddling him. Fury overtook him, as he rained hit after hit on the scumbag. "This is for my sister, you piece of shit." He managed through gritted teeth, although he doubted Coin heard him past his screaming.

The door behind them opened. "Peck, against the wall!" a guard shouted, pointing his gun. Steve rolled off the man, doing as the guard ordered.

"Peck?" Coin wheezed incredulously from where he lay bleeding on the floor.

"You have to tell the warden." Steve said urgently, grunting as the guard slammed him hard against the wall. "Tell him to call Detective Nash… Coin is holding a cop captive in a cabin at North KOA."

The forearm pressing hard against his back lessened slightly in surprise. "You better not be lying, Peck." The guard said unsurely.

"She's my sister, Gail Peck." Steve groaned. "That piece of shit on the floor kidnapped her, trust me. Radio the warden, he'll know."

After a pause, the other guard spoke quietly into the radio. After receiving confirmation Steve was let off the wall with a warning to behave, and the guards hauled a protesting Coin out of the cell.

Steve stared at his hand, clenching his fist to eye his swollen bleeding knuckles.

He did what he could for his sister. The rest was up to Fifteen.

* * *

Traci stood with Holly outside the residence in North York, listening to the muffled sounds of the officers clearing the house.

MedClean had been surprisingly helpful, even narrowing down the list of employees they send to those who had worked at Millbourne in the past six months. From there, the detectives were able to cross off most of the people on the list before finding one name that fit their suspect perfectly.

Justin Coin. Employee for six years. Actively works at Millbourne and Toronto General, with prior history at a veterinary hospital in York. When MedClean sent over his ID photo, the image of the man with dark hair and a beard only cemented their suspicions.

Now they stood outside of Coin's townhouse, having received the warrant on the way across town. Traci and Holly had been allowed to tag along, provided they wore vests and stayed safely out of the way.

"Do you think she's in there?" Holly asked in a low voice.

"I hope so." Traci said softly. But her hopes plummeted as Dov exited the building with a discouraged look on his face.

"It's clear." He said tonelessly. "We found a few medical supplies along with printed guides from the internet, but nothing that tells us Gail was ever here."

Holly slumped slightly against Traci in disappointment. Traci felt the same way.

"Why don't you guys head back with Chris?" he suggested. "We're going to be here a while, sorting through anything that could help us. Luke is getting his credit card history as we speak."

Chris came out behind him, moving to stand beside Holly. "Come on, Dr. Stewart. They're going to find her." He said softly, and Holly let him lead her to the cruiser.

Traci stood with Dov for a moment. "I really thought we found her." Dov commented, clearly upset.

"We will." Traci said firmly. "We're on the right track."

Her phone rang. "It's the warden from Millbourne." Traci said in surprise, before answering.

"Detective Nash. I have a message for you from Steven Peck."

"What is it?" Traci asked eagerly, before telling Dov in a low voice to get the others.

"We found him assaulting a janitorial staff member in his cell, Justin Coin? Peck claims the man kidnapped an officer and is holding her in a cabin in North Toronto KOA." The man replied. "I don't suppose that means anything to you?"

"It does, it means everything." Traci responded quickly. "Hold Coin there, don't let him leave. I'll send officers over right away." She hung up the phone as Callaghan and Anderson followed Dov outside of the house.

"Steve found Coin." Luke furrowed his brow and opened his mouth, possibly to ask how an inmate knew about an active investigation, but Traci continued before he had the chance. "Coin has Gail in a cabin at North York KOA."

"That's just up the 400." Frankie said eagerly, pulling the keys out of her pocket. "Let's go."

Luke stared at Traci for a moment, before allowing himself to be pulled away by Frankie. Traci huffed slightly in relief as she rushed to Chris's cruiser.

* * *

Frankie gestured for Diaz to stay back with Nash and Stewart, knowing he had been up for too long and shouldn't be handling a weapon. She approached the front porch with Epstein, while Callaghan took Gail's rookie around the back.

"On three." Her radio crackled with Luke's instruction. Dov mouthed the count at her, before they kicked the door in together.

"Police!"

Frankie tried not to let the sight of Gail tied to the bed stop her in her tracks, clearing every corner of the small room.

Callaghan stepped into the room, having cleared the small bedroom in the back. "Clear." He said tiredly, eyes on Gail.

Frankie holstered her gun, approaching the bed softly while gesturing for the others to stay back for the moment. She swallowed bile at the fact Gail's shirt had been ripped off, but took small comfort in the fact her pants were still in place. "Gail, it's Frankie. It's okay, you're safe." She said softly, touching her shoulder before untying the gag.

Gail stirred, groaning at her touch. She opened her eyes slightly, blinking until staring confusedly at Frankie. Her gaze was unfocused, dazed, while watching Frankie cut her ties. Her eyes kept twitching, indicating she was still snowed by whatever Coin had shot her up with.

As soon as Frankie finished cutting the last rope around Gail's wrist, Gail shrieked. She flailed her arm downwards, hitting Frankie surprisingly hard for her condition.

"Hey, Gail! It's me, Frankie! It's okay, you're okay!" Frankie yelped. Gail didn't respond, only struggling on the bed before curling up in the fetal position with a groan. Any touch by Frankie resulted in a flinch.

"No more." Gail pleaded, her speech slurred.

"Someone get Dr. Stewart." Frankie said softly, as Luke radioed a request for EMS.

* * *

 **AN: No, I'm not dead. Sorry to leave you hanging.**


	12. It's Easier the Second Time Around

_Author's note: I'm so very sorry for the hiatus. But I'm back, and finishing this story come hell or high water. There's likely one more chapter after this one, maybe two._

* * *

Holly stared at Gail's cowlick, wanting to sweep the errant piece of hair off her forehead but was reluctant to risk waking her. She sighed, shifting in the uncomfortable chair again as she tried to find a position that didn't aggravate the already sore muscles in her lower back.

The ride to the hospital had been… rough. Gail kept attempting to curl up in the fetal position, and panicking when the seatbelts on the stretcher restricted her from doing so. She was confused and combative when the paramedic attempted anything. Getting IV access was out of the question.

Holly had been forced to ride in the passenger seat in the front of the ambulance, watching everything in the tiny monitor while wishing she could be back there to try and soothe Gail's distress. But even Holly's touch had caused Gail to flinch violently when they eased Gail onto the stretcher, so Holly's presence in the back would have done nothing but be in the way.

While displeased, Holly grudgingly saw the logic when the paramedic was forced to call for an order of midazolam to sedate her. Dov, who had been riding in the back as the required police presence, protested drugging Gail further. But Gail was becoming increasingly combative, ripping off the leads and kicking the cardiac monitor that hung on a stand over her feet. For the safety of everyone, including Gail, it was better to use chemical restraints until she was at the hospital and weaned off the meds in a controlled environment. For now, it was more important to have the ability to monitor Gail closely as ketamine, ACP, and midazolam all could effect her cardio-respiratory status. Holly understood when the paramedic explained this, even if Dov did not.

Apparently the physician on the phone agreed with the paramedic's judgement, and Gail was given another small dose of midazolam intramuscularly. Dov's expression communicated his discontent clearly as he held Gail still for the shot. But then Gail quieted and her pulse slowed to a less panicked rate, making the ride more comfortable for all aboard.

They had been met at the hospital by the other detectives and officers. Holly had been surprised to learn that Chris was Gail's medical power of attorney, but supposed she had to pick someone when her family all but abandoned her.

Now Gail was recovering in a bed, quiet but with a pained expression on her face while she slept. Chris was sleeping in the armchair in the corner, and Fox stood guard outside. Everyone else had returned to 15 to sort out the arrest of Justin Coin, and the paperwork and media circus that would undoubtably follow. Holly asked Traci to pass on the message that it would be best to give Gail space until she was ready. Traci had agreed.

A small groan interrupted Holly's thoughts. Gail stirred on the bed, her eyelids fluttering before opening slowly. After a moment, a look of panic hit her and she grabbed at the IV in her arm.

"Gail, it's okay. You're safe." Holly said softly, laying her hand gently on top of Gail's. She didn't want to scare her by tugging her hand away.

Gail stared at Holly, her chest heaving with panic. But her eyes were finally focused, even if her pupils were still abnormally small and twitching slightly as the drugs left her system.

"Holly." Gail breathed, her voice horribly small and broken. The sound cut at her, made her want to embrace Gail tightly until she knew that everything would be fine. But as things were, that would be far from a good idea.

"Yes, Gail." Holly murmured, moving her thumb comfortingly against the back of Gail's hand. "You're in the hospital. You're safe, it's over."

Gail jerked her hand away, shuddering violently. "You need to go." she said. By now Chris was awake and rising to his feet.

"Gail…" Holly began, but Gail cut her off.

"Go! Now!" Gail yelled and gestured violently with her arm, before yelping and grasping at her side. Her head stayed bowed, her shoulders shaking slightly.

Holly met Chris's gaze, understanding the silent plea he sent her. Earlier while Gail slept, Chris had told her about the lack of support Gail had after being taken by Perik. The rookies had been caught up in the death of Det. Barber and supporting Traci, so they accepted Gail's request of being left alone far too easily. Chris had softly explained that not being there was his biggest regret, as he watched Gail internalize and self-destruct as she did in the months that followed. Chris expressed his fear that Gail would likely do the same again, so someone needed to be there for her despite how much she would yell and fight it.

Someone, meaning her.

Holly nodded subtly at Chris, giving the message that it was okay for him to leave, and that she would stay. He left then, shutting the door quietly behind him.

"You have two broken ribs on that side, they're taped but will still hurt if you aren't careful." Holly said softly, thumbing the control for the morphine drip that fed into Gail's IV.

"I told you to go." Gail muttered into her hand, still covering her face.

"I know." The chair scraped against the floor as Holly sat down again.

The silence was remarkably loud, broken only by the comforting beep of the monitor and the occasional noise from Gail's IV pump. Holly watched the monitor again, as she had for the hour prior to Gail waking up. The numbers comforted her, especially as Gail's heartrate slowed back to a more relaxed rate.

"Why are you here?" Gail whispered after a while. "Why can't you just leave me alone?"

Holly exhaled slowly. "Because I left you before." She said softly, staring down at her hands. "I left and things were terrible for you and I hate that I wasn't there for you. And I refuse to make the same mistake again."

Gail made a noise that could have been an attempt at a deprecating laugh. "Right. Well consider your community service completed." She said harshly, her words still with a slur. "I'm a beat cop, Holly. This shit happens. I'll get over it, just like it's expected of me. But you don't need to slum it with me anymore, so go hang out with your doctor friends so I won't ruin your life too."

The words hurt. Holly felt tears spring to her eyes as Gail fired her attack, and gritted her teeth to keep them from trickling down her cheeks. "Why can't you see how amazing you are?" she whispered, afraid that her voice would break if she spoke any louder. "God Gail, you are so incredibly brave, to stand up and keep going like you do. And to face that psychopath again, and having to endure everything again. Gail…" Holly touched Gail's arm slightly, feeling a flash of guilt when Gail jumped but the contact having the desired effect of Gail looking at her.

"You are so much better of a person than anyone I know. I don't slum it when I spend time with you, it's the opposite." Her voice finally broke, and the tears began falling. "I'm not even remotely worthy of loving you, Gail." Holly choked out, pressing a palm to her forehead to try and pull herself together.

When she looked up, Gail was crying too. Hard. The silent tears eventually made their way into sobs, Gail making strangled noises of grief and pain from her ribs as all the terror and heartache was finally released. Holly thumbed the morphine drip again to relieve the pain the crying was causing in Gail's ribs, before sitting on her uninjured side to hold her. Holly let Gail cry herself out against her, until the morphine kicked in and Gail drifted off into an exhausted slumber.

* * *

It was easier this time, Gail reflected.

Before, she was packaged up to her parent's house to recover. There she endured about a week of solitude before her mother's comments began – ideas of how Gail should be ready to work again soon, comments of how 15 was short on detectives now so she should consider her application (if she was even still eligible after this mess), and sniping reminders to use the peephole before opening the front door for others.

This time, Gail got in Holly's car to live in her guest room for the time being. The pathologist had barely left her side in the few days Gail had remained in the hospital, only leaving at Gail's urging for food and shower (' _No offense Lunchbox, but you smell like one of your patients'_ ). There was no guilt, no shaming from Holly. Only unwavering support, and being her strong shoulder to cry on when the nightmares were too terrible to handle.

In addition to Holly, her visitors also included many from 15. Frankie's visit was a bit awkward, with Holly excusing herself to get another coffee. It was through Traci that Gail heard the entire story of how they found Justin Coin, and his connection to Perik. To her relief, there was no evidence of Coin abducting anyone else other than Gail and those they would already.

Her parents did not visit or call.


End file.
